Significant Facilitation Effect Research Articles

Investigation of the Corrosion–Wear Interaction Behavior of 8Cr4Mo4V Bearing Steel at Various Corrosion Intervals

The corrosion–wear coupling damage failure of 8Cr4Mo4V bearing steel under marine atmospheric conditions significantly limits aeroengine bearing applications. The present work aims to investigate the evolution of the corrosion–wear properties of 8Cr4Mo4V bearing steel at varied corrosion intervals and estimate the corrosion–wear interaction (CWI) effect. Neutral salt spray tests combined with tribological experiments were employed to explore the effect of corrosion on wear and the influence of wear on corrosion, and a quantitative characterization method of corrosion–wear interactions was proposed by establishing the component relationships of material losses in the corrosion–wear process. The results indicate that the corrosion rates initially increase and then decrease, ultimately resulting in a pattern characterized by predominant total corrosion and nested localized corrosion. The corroded surfaces tremendously influence the friction coefficient curves at the third stage, and a synergistic acceleration effect exists in the CWI behavior of 8Cr4Mo4V bearing steel under the action of corrosion and wear. A sample corroded for 6 h displayed the significant facilitative effect of corrosion on wear, exhibiting the highest CWI ratio and a greater total mass loss primarily attributed to corrosion. This study offers a significant reference for the quantitative assessment of the tribo-corrosion properties of bearings in a marine atmospheric environment.

Plant–plant interactions affect seasonal nitrogen uptake of subalpine conifer seedlings by altering root traits and soil nitrogen availabilities

AbstractAlthough it is known that plant–plant interaction is an important factor influencing plant nitrogen (N) uptake and biomass productivity, its effects on seasonal inorganic N uptake, preference, and allocation remain unclear. In this study, two conifer species (Picea asperata and Abies faxoniana) were planted in three different planting modes (i.e., single, intraspecific, and interspecific interaction). Using 15N stable isotope tracer, we quantified plant biomass, ammonium (NH4+), and nitrate (NO3−) uptake rate (mass) and allocation in the middle (July) and the end (September) of the growing season, respectively, followed by analyses of root traits and soil properties so as to explore the underlying mechanism. Across the two seasons, intraspecific interaction decreased plant biomass and inorganic N‐uptake rate, which triggered intense competition for both species. Intraspecific competition of P. asperata was stronger than that of A. faxoniana. In contrast, interspecific interaction revealed significant facilitative effects on A. faxoniana, particularly in September. From the middle to the late growing season, the inorganic N‐uptake rate of P. asperata reduced, whereas that of A. faxoniana increased under interspecific interaction. The seasonal variation in plant N uptake was regulated by changes in root traits (such as root nitrogen concentration, specific root length, and branching intensity) and soil N availabilities. Both species indicated a preference for NO3− across seasons. Furthermore, we observed that 15N allocation to shoots of A. faxoniana under interspecific interaction was higher than that of P. asperata and declined from July to September. These findings on how plant–plant interactions affect plant N uptake seasonally can facilitate our understanding of species co‐existence and community assembly in forest ecosystems.

Source-soil-rice-human multi-objective optimization to minimize the cadmium intake risk to consumers of field planting rice

Cadmium (Cd) exposure risks to consumers of locally grown rice are often estimated without considering the sources and bioavailability of Cd. Here, we present the first comprehensive and quantitative analysis on the sources and transport of Cd in paddy ecosystems by combining a regional investigation in southern China, a positive matrix factorization algorithm, and a classification and regression tree approach. Results showed that local atmospheric emission regulations failed to mitigate Cd contamination as the Cd inputs from industrial effluent irrigation were largely overlooked. Leaching loss of soil Mn is an invisible threat to grain safety as Mn can exhibit a significant facilitation effect on rice Cd uptake under acidic pH. A probability-based toxicokinetic model is proposed to optimize the strategies for minimizing the Cd body burden through the source-soil-rice-human pathway. Urinary Cd exceeded its safety threshold in 61.7% of local female adults (6.14±4.42 µg g -1 creatinine) who consumed less rice grain but with a low Zn bioavailability. To protect 85% of local rice production from causing excessive Cd exposure risk, irrigation channel needs to be effectively cleaned up, and the pH and amorphous Mn content of rice soils need to be raised to 5.50 and 179 mg kg -1 , respectively. • Contamination sources should not be confused with the causative factors of Cd exposure risks. • Manganese exhibited significant facilitation effect with acidic pH on rice Cd uptake. • Urinary Cd from local adults can be better predicted with probability-based toxicokinetic model. • Optimum scenarios help protect 85% of rice production from causing excessive kidney burden.

Dyadic response facilitation of object play in Balinese long-tailed macaques

Social influence is at the core of the emergence and maintenance of behavioral traditions in various animal taxa. Response facilitation is a mechanism of social influence whereby observing a demonstrator performing a behavior temporarily increases the probability that the observer will perform the same behavior. We focused on stone handling (SH) behavior, a form of object-directed play routinely displayed by free-ranging long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) in Ubud, Bali, Indonesia. We tested whether the expression of SH was subject to dyadic response facilitation. We compared video-recorded focal samples of an individual immediately after they had witnessed a SH bout performed by a conspecific, and matched-control focal samples of the same witness in the absence of any surrounding SH bouts. We found converging evidence that SH was facilitated within pairs of individuals. First, SH occurred significantly more often and lasted significantly longer in the post-witnessing condition than in the matched-control condition. Second, a monkey initiated SH more rapidly in the former than in the latter, and this significant facilitation effect mainly occurred during the first two minutes after witnessing SH. By demonstrating that the expression of SH was socially mediated, we provided further support for the cultural nature of this behavior.

Orthographic facilitation of oral vocabulary acquisition in primary school children.

Children's oral vocabulary acquisition is an important aspect of language development that plays a crucial role in reading and literacy development and subsequent academic success. Therefore, it is important to identify and implement evidence-based effective strategies of vocabulary instruction for primary school children. Orthographic facilitation refers to the benefit afforded to word learning by incidentally presenting spellings when new words are introduced. This study aimed to replicate the orthographic facilitation effect in primary school (Grades 1-6) children and further assess whether children in different grades benefitted differently from the presence of orthography during spoken word learning. To do this, 91 children from Grades 1 to 6 were taught novel picture-word pairs with or without spellings. Word learning was assessed during and after training using behavioural and eye-tracking data from picture-naming and picture-word-matching (PWM) tasks. Irrespective of grade, all children experienced a significant orthographic facilitation effect during training. The post-training results were more task dependent with all grades showing a significant orthographic facilitation effect on the picture-naming task, and only Grades 1 to 4 showing a facilitation effect on the PWM task. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Cross-language activation during word recognition in child second-language learners and the role of executive function

We investigated lexical retrieval processes in 4- to 6-year-old German–English bilinguals by exploring cross-language activation during second-language (L2) word recognition of cognates and noncognates in semantically related and unrelated contexts in young learners of English. Both button presses (reaction times and accuracies) and eye-tracking data (percentage looks to target) yielded a significant cognate facilitation effect, indicating that the children’s performance was boosted by cognate words. Nonetheless, the degree of phonological overlap of cognates did not modulate their performance. Moreover, a semantic interference effect was found in the children’s eye movement data. However, in these young L2 learners, cognate status exerted a comparatively stronger impact on L2 word recognition than semantic relatedness. Finally, correlational analyses on the cognate and noncognate performance and the children’s executive function yielded a significant positive correlation between noncognate performance and their inhibitory control, suggesting that noncognate processing depended to a greater extent on inhibitory control than cognate processing.

Spelling-sound knowledge in the context of multilingualism: is lexical access selective or nonselective?

The present study investigates shared phonological information and selectivity during lexical access in Brazilian Portuguese-English unbalanced bilinguals, learners of Korean as an L3. Participants took part in a word naming task which used L2 primes with targets from the L3 at stimulus onset asynchronies (SOA) of 140ms and 250ms. The results show a significant facilitation effect in word naming when an English prime was presented in comparison with control primes. Additionally, a significant facilitation effect was also seen in trials in which the primes were presented at a 250ms SOA in relation to a 140ms SOA. Taken together, the results indicate that participants’ spelling-sound knowledge of L2 English was activated during the reading aloud of words in L3 Korean, which indicates nonselectivity in lexical access and a shared mental lexicon across languages.

Interspecific relationships between submerged and emergent aquatic plants along a nitrogen gradient in a mesocosm experiment

The responses of plant populations and communities to environmental factors play a key role in the ecological protection and restoration of lakes. However, little is known about how interspecific relationships respond to environmental gradients, especially for relationships between different growth forms such as submerged and emergent aquatic plants in shallow lakes, which can further affect species composition as community dynamics. We carried out a mesocosm experiment to investigate the responses of two focal aquatic plants (Ceratophyllum demersum and Phragmites australis) at two density levels and six levels of total nitrogen (TN) levels. Our results suggested that interspecific competition exist between C. demersum and P. australis, especially at high nitrogen levels. The competition relationship was mainly influenced by variations of relative growth rates of C. demersum and population density of P. australis along the nitrogen gradient. The interspecific neighbor effect on C. demersum shifted from facilitation to competition as TN increased, whereas on P. australis showed no significant facilitation effect along the TN gradient. Ceratophyllum demersum and P. australis adopted stress-tolerance and competition strategies for nitrogen, respectively, in co-culture. As a result, the dominant species in the plant community is likely to shift from the submerged macrophyte (C. demersum) to the emergent macrophyte (P. australis) as TN increases. Moderate TN (2.5 mg/L) can potentially support high biodiversity in macrophyte-dominated shallow lakes in our study. This finding has implications for different community composition at different nitrogen levels. Furthermore, it has important implications for protecting biodiversity and guiding vegetation restoration in shallow lakes.

The Impact of Teaching Reasoning Fallacies on the Critical Thinking Ability of MoroccanEngineering Students

This research paper reports an experimental study geared to examine the effect of teaching reasoning fallacies on the critical thinking ability of a group of Moroccan university students. In a random assignment post-test design, 40 subjects took part in study-treatment. While the subjects in both experimental groups (n 20) received a treatment on how to avoid and spot fallacies in arguments, the control group was involved straightway in taking the pre-test and the post test (with no prior assistance) for comparison purposes. After the treatment -which consisted in having the experimental group (n 20 subjects) receive a training on the meaning of 15 reasoning fallacies and reinforcements tasks on how to identify them in statements and how to avoid them when they speak or write - all the subjects answered a twenty item multiple-choicetest and 5 of them responded to structured interview to identify their attitudes. The final scores were then subjected to descriptive as well as referential statistics (independent and paired samples T-test) for between group comparison purposes. The results reveal a significant facilitative and positive effect of reasoning fallacies training understudy and particularly so when compared to the control condition. A follow-up investigation through an independent samplest-test) attested to the fact that the training resulted in an increased critical thinking ability as measured by the receptive and productive and this is particularly so when compared to the control condition. The study concludes with the main finding together with their interpretation. Some practical implications related to critical thinking instruction, lesson planning and material development, in general, brings the paper full circled.

The Impact of Teaching Reasoning Fallacies on the Critical Thinking Ability of Moroccan Engineering Students: The Case of ENSAM Meknes

This research paper reports an experimental study geared to examine the effect of teaching reasoning fallacies on the critical thinking ability of a group of Moroccan university students. In a random assignment post-test design, 40 subjects took part in the study treatment. While the subjects in both experimental groups (n 20) received treatment on how to avoid and spot fallacies in arguments, the control group was involved straightway in taking the pre-test and the post test (with no prior assistance) for comparison purposes. After the treatment -which consisted in having the experimental group (n 20 subjects) receive training on the meaning of 15 reasoning fallacies and reinforcements tasks on how to identify them in statements and how to avoid them when they speak or write - all the subjects answered a twenty item multiple-choice test and 5 of them responded to structured interview to identify their attitudes. The final scores were then subjected to descriptive as well as referential statistics (independent and paired samples T-test) for between-group comparison purposes. The results reveal a significant facilitative and positive effect of reasoning fallacies training understudy, particularly when compared to the control condition. A follow-up investigation through an independent simplest-test) attested to the fact that the training resulted in an increased critical thinking ability as measured by the receptive and productive and this is particularly so when compared to the control condition. The study concludes with the main finding together with their interpretation. Some practical implications related to critical thinking instruction, lesson planning and material development, in general, brings the full paper circle.

Adaptation of a semantic picture-word interference paradigm for future language mapping with transcranial magnetic stimulation: A behavioural study

Neuro-navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) helps to identify language-related cortical regions prior to brain tumour surgery. We adapted a semantic picture-word interference (PWI) paradigm from psycholinguistics to high-resolution TMS language mapping which prospectively can be used to specifically address the level of semantic processing. In PWI, pictures are presented along with distractor words which facilitate or inhibit the lexical access to the picture name. These modulatory effects of distractors can be annihilated in language-sensitive areas by the inhibitory effects of TMS on language processing. The rationale here is to observe the distractor effect without active stimulation and then to observe presumably its elimination by interference of the TMS stimulation. The special requirements to use PWI in this setting are (1) identifying word material for accelerating reliably naming latencies, choosing (2) the ideal presentation modality, and (3) the appropriate timing of distractor presentation. These are then controlled in real TMS language mapping. To adapt a semantic PWI naming paradigm for TMS application we employed 30 object-pictures in spoken German language. Part-whole associative semantic related or unrelated distractors were presented in two experiments including 15 healthy volunteers each, once auditorily and once visually. Data analysis across the entire stimulus set revealed a trend for facilitation in the visual condition, whereas no effects were observed for auditory distractors. In a sub-set, we found a significant facilitation effect for visual semantic distractors. Thus, with this study we provide a well-controlled item set for future studies implementing effective TMS language mapping applying visual semantic PWI.

Governmental inspection and local legislation on environmental protection: Evidence from China

AbstractUsing China's central inspection of environmental protection as a natural experiment, this paper adopts a difference‐in‐difference method to investigate how this campaign‐style governance approach can influence the legislation process related to the conservation of nature. Our empirics find a significant facilitative effect on the enactment of local environmental protection laws in terms of both number and quality, and this facilitative effect is stronger in provinces and regions with weaker legal basis and greater environmental pollution. Moreover, we show that this facilitative effect has already begun to generate favorable judicial consequences. As for policy implications, we not only provide an overall evaluation on the performance of the central inspection, but also demonstrate China's top–down campaign‐style governance indeed has a long‐lasting impact on the establishment of its institutions.

Are there segmental and tonal effects on syntactic encoding? Evidence from structural priming in Mandarin

• The Mandarin Ba-SVO transitive alternation shows structural priming. • There is a lexical, but not a semantic, boost of such priming. • The phonological boost of such priming does not depend on orthographic overlap. • Syllabic overlap promotes structural priming while tonal overlap is not. • Phonological (and lexical) overlap facilitates word order encoding. Numerous studies have established that speakers tend to form utterances by reusing previously experienced sentence structures (i.e., structural priming). It was also frequently found that the repetition of lexical items enhances structural priming (i.e., lexical boost). This facilitation effect occurs not only when there is a full overlap of verbs, but also when one level of the lexical representation (semantic or phonological representation) overlaps between the prime and the target. In the current study, we further scrutinize the phonological overlap effect on structural priming. We asked whether the phonological effect is independent of orthographic overlap, and whether it is driven by overlap of segments, tone, or both. In five structural priming experiments (three lab-based, two web-based experiments), native Mandarin speakers were instructed to describe transitive pictures after receiving SVO or SOV “ba” prime sentences. In Experiment 1, prime and target verbs had lexical overlap (e.g., 脱[tuo1, to take off]-脱[tuo1] ), semantic overlap (e.g., 卸[xie4, to remove]-脱[tuo1] ), phonological overlap (e.g., 拖[tuo1, to mop]-脱[tuo1] ), or no overlap (e.g., 打[da3, to beat]-脱[tuo1] ) while similarities at other levels were carefully avoided. There were structural priming and lexical boost effects, but semantic or phonological overlap did not boost priming. In two further lab-based experiments and their large-scale online replications, verbs in prime and target had full phonological overlap (segmental + tonal, e.g., 拖[tuo1]-脱[tuo1] ), syllabic overlap only (e.g., [tuo2, to carry]-脱[tuo1] ), tonal overlap only ( 称[cheng1, to weigh]-脱[tuo1] ), or no overlap. All four experiments showed structural priming, which was boosted by full phonological overlap. The syllabic overlap exerted a significant facilitation effect on structural priming, whereas no tonal effect was found. Together, these results indicate that processing at the phonological level feeds back to syntactic encoding in sentence production, which further supports an interactive view of language production.

Remediation of a phonological representation deficit in Chinese children with dyslexia: A comparison between metalinguistic training and working memory training.

A form-preparation task in the language production field was adopted to examine output phonological representations in Chinese dyslexia and their susceptibility to training. Forty-one Chinese children with dyslexia (7-11years old) and 36 chronological age controls completed this task. The controls demonstrated a marginally significant syllable facilitation effect (d=-0.13), indicating their use of syllable-sized phonological representations during speech production, while the group with dyslexia showed a significantly different pattern (d=0.04), opposite to the direction of a facilitation effect. The children with dyslexia were then randomly assigned to either metalinguistic training (N=22) or working memory training (N=19). Only the metalinguistic training subgroup demonstrated a significant syllable facilitation effect afterward (metalinguistic: d=-0.13; working memory: d=-0.01). The results suggest the presence of a phonological representation deficit at the syllable level in Chinese dyslexia and its possible remediation by metalinguistic training. Such a phonological deficit in readers of a logographic script strongly supports the impaired phonological representation view of developmental dyslexia. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://youtu.be/zT2Be0xMkh0.

Writing in the air: Facilitative effects of finger writing in older adults

Kūsho, which refers to a behavior in which one moves the index finger as a substitute for a pen in the air or on a surface, mostly used when trying to recall the shape of a written character or the spelling of a word, has been known to facilitate cognitive task performance among kanji writing-system users. This study investigates whether the facilitative effect of kūsho, the existence of which has been exclusively confirmed in younger adults, is present in old age. Moreover, to further understand the interaction between finger movement and cognitive processing, we analyzed the correlation between the kūsho effect and factors such as age, mini-mental state examination (MMSE) score, and number of years of education. The kūsho effect was assessed by a task where participants mentally assembled a set of kanji subparts to form an actual character. The results showed a significant facilitative effect of kūsho and a strong negative correlation between kūsho effect and education. This study confirms the benefits of finger movement for solving cognitive tasks involving visual processing of written language among older adults and suggests the kūsho effect may be mediated by education.

Periphytic algae mediate interactions between neighbor and target submerged macrophytes along a nutrient gradient

Abstract Interactions between plants will shift between competition and facilitation along environmental stresses, which has already been widely demonstrated in terrestrial ecosystems. Reestablishment of submerged macrophytes in eutrophic aquatic ecosystems has been recognized as a pivotal measure in the process of ecological restoration. However, little is known about the interactions between neighbor species and target species of submerged macrophytes along a nutrient gradient in freshwater ecosystems. Here, we carried out a mesocosm factorial experiment to investigate the responses of three target species (Potamogeton perfoliatus, Myriophyllum spicatum and Vallisneria natans) to the presence/absence of neighbor species (Potamogeton malaianus) under five nutrient levels. Results showed that the neighbor species has a strong negative effect on the performance of P. perfoliatus, whereas has weak effects on the performances of M. spicatum and V. natans (negative and neutral, respectively). Along the experimental nutrient gradient, the neighborhood effects shifted from facilitation to competition, whereas no significant facilitative effects were found in the study. Strong negative neighborhood effects were found in high nutrient levels due to the higher periphyton biomass. Multiple regression analysis suggested that the neighborhood effects are significantly affected and largely explained by the periphyton attached on target species. Overall, our results suggested that periphyton may be a potential factor mediating the neighborhood effects on restoration of submerged macrophytes in eutrophic freshwater ecosystems.

Aging and Language: Maintenance of Morphological Representations in Older Adults

Studies employing primed lexical decision tasks have revealed morphological facilitation effects in children and young adults. It is unknown if this effect is preserved or diminished in older adults. In fact, only few studies have investigated age-related changes in morphological processing and results are inconsistent across studies. To address this issue, we investigated morphological inflection compared to orthographic and semantic activation in young and older adults. Twenty-six adults aged 60–85 and 22 younger adults aged 19–28 participated. We probed verb recognition using a sandwich-masked primed lexical decision paradigm. We investigated perceptibility effects using different prime presentation times (33, 66 and 150 ms), and prime types with priming conditions involving orthographic (e.g., cassis – CASSE ‘blackcurrant – break’), regular inflection morphological (cassait – CASSE ‘broke – break’), and semantic primes (brise – CASSE ‘break – break’) and their controls, while measuring response accuracy and reactions times. Response accuracy analyses revealed that older participants performed at ceiling on the lexical decision task, and that accuracy level was higher compared to young adults. Reaction times data revealed effects of group (young vs. older adults), priming condition and an interaction of age group and morphological priming, but no prime presentation time effects. Both young and older adults presented a significant facilitation effect (reduced reaction times) in the orthographic and morphological priming conditions. No semantic effects were observed in either group. Younger adults also showed a significantly stronger morphological priming effect, while older adults showed no difference between orthographic and morphological priming when comparing priming magnitudes. These findings suggest (1) that regular inflectional morphological processing benefits lexical access in younger French adults, confirming studies in other languages, and (2) that this advantage is reduced at older ages.

Efficiency in glimpsing vowel sequences in fluctuating makers: Effects of temporal fine structure and temporal regularity.

Listeners' efficiency in glimpsing the target speech in amplitude-modulated maskers may depend on whether the target is perceptually segregated from the masker and on the temporal predictability of the target. Using synthesized vowel sequences as the target, recognition of vowel sequences in simultaneous amplitude-modulated noise maskers was measured as the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the masker modulation rate were systematically varied. In Experiment I (Exp. I), the temporal fine structure of the target was degraded by synthesizing the vowels using iterated rippled noise as the glottal source. In Experiment II (Exp. II), the vowel sequences were constructed so that they were not isochronous, but instead contained randomized intervals between adjacent vowels. Results were compared to the predictions from a dip-listening model based on short-term SNR. The results show no significant facilitative effect of temporal fine structure cues on vowel recognition (Exp. I). The model predictions significantly overestimated vowel-recognition performance in amplitude-modulated maskers when the temporal regularity of the target was degraded (Exp. II), suggesting the influence of temporal regularity on glimpsing efficiency. Furthermore, the overestimations by the model were greater at lower SNRs and selective to moderate masker modulation rates (between 2 and 6 Hz).

Reduced Target Facilitation and Increased Distractor Suppression During Mind Wandering.

The perceptual decoupling hypothesis suggests a general mechanism that while mind wandering, our attention is detached from our environment, resulting in diminished processing of external stimuli. This study focused on examining two possible specific mechanisms: the global suppression of all external stimuli, and a combination of reduced target facilitation and increased distractor suppression. An attentional capture task was used in which certain trials measured distractor suppression effects and others assessed target facilitation effects. The global suppression account predicts negative impacts on both types of trials, while the combined mechanisms of reduced target facilitation and increased distractor suppression suggest that only target-present trials would be affected. Results showed no cost of mind wandering on target-absent trials, but significant distractor suppression and target facilitation effects during mind wandering on target-present trials. These findings suggest that rather than perceptual decoupling globally suppressing all stimuli, it is more selective, falling in line with evidence on strong top-down modulation.

Revisiting the Revised Hierarchical Model: Evidence for concept mediation in backward translation

A claim fundamental to the revised hierarchical model (Kroll & Stewart, 1994) was that concepts did not mediate backward translation, based on their findings of a category interference effect in forward translation in relatively fluent bilinguals but no category effect in backward translation. This study hypothesized that there was a category facilitation effect in L2-to-concept, which counterbalanced the category interference effect in concept-to-L1, resulting in an overall L2-to-L1 null category effect.In a novel English word-pair semantic comparison task, participants were presented with a sequence of English word-pairs, and judged which word's real-world referent was bigger in size. Results found a significant category facilitation effect in both L2-to-concept for young Chinese adults and L1-to-concept for young English adults when increasing the number of trials. The findings help explain why Kroll and Stewart's finding of an overall L2-to-L1 null category effect cannot be evidence against concept mediation in backward translation.