scholarly journals Age biases the judgment rather than the perception of an ambiguous figure

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ambroos Brouwer ◽  
Xuxi Jin ◽  
Aisha Humaira Waldi ◽  
Steven Verheyen

AbstractOlder participants who are briefly presented with the ‘my wife/mother-in-law’ ambiguous figure estimate its age to be higher than young participants do. This finding is thought to be the result of a subconscious social group bias that influences participants’ perception of the figure. Because people are better able to recognize similarly aged individuals, young participants are expected to perceive the ambiguous figure as a young woman, while older participants are more likely to recognize an older lady. We replicate the difference in age estimates, but find no relationship between participants’ age and their perception of the ambiguous figure. This leads us to conclude that the positive relationship between participants’ age and their age estimates of the ambiguous ‘my wife/mother-in-law’ figure is better explained by the own-age anchor effect, which holds that people use their own age as a yard stick to judge the age of the figure, regardless of whether the young woman or the older lady is perceived. Our results disqualify the original finding as an example of cognitive penetrability: the participants’ age biases their judgment of the ambiguous figure, not its perception.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ambroos Brouwer ◽  
Xuxi Jin ◽  
Aisha Waldi ◽  
Steven Verheyen

Abstract Older participants who are briefly presented with the ‘my wife and my mother-in-law’ ambiguous figure estimate its age to be higher than young participants do. This finding is thought to be the result of a subconscious social group bias that influences participants’ perception of the figure. Because people are better able to recognize similarly aged individuals, young participants are expected to perceive the ambiguous figure as a young woman, while older participants are more likely to recognize an older lady. We replicate the difference in age estimates, but find no relationship between participants’ age and their perception of the ambiguous figure. This leads us to conclude that the positive relationship between participants’ age and their age estimates of the ambiguous ‘my wife and my mother-in-law’ figure is better explained by the own-age anchor effect, which holds that people use their own age as a yard stick to determine the age of the figure, regardless of whether the young woman or the older lady is perceived. Assimilation of others’ characteristics to one’s own is particularly likely to occur in uncertain circumstances that provide little information to base judgments on, such as estimating the age of a briefly presented ambiguous figure.


1991 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Izawa ◽  
T. Komabayashi ◽  
T. Mochizuki ◽  
K. Suda ◽  
M. Tsuboi

Digitonin-permeabilized adipocytes were used to study the coupling of adenylate cyclase (AC) to lipolysis in exercise-trained rats. Isoproterenol-(IPR) stimulated lipolysis in permeabilized cells was significantly greater in trained than in control rats. Under essentially identical conditions, the dose-response curve for IPR stimulation of AC activity in the absence of 3-isobutyl-1-methylxanthine was similar in trained and control rats. However, the potency of stimulation by IPR as a percentage of the basal level was greater in trained rats. AC activity and lipolysis in the presence of 3-isobutyl-1-methylxanthine were also significantly greater in trained than in control rats. Least-squares analysis by plotting the log AC vs. lipolysis values showed that the regression coefficient was about three-fold greater in trained than in control rats. The concentration of endogenous adenosine 3′,5′-cyclic monophosphate (cAMP) needed to produce a half-maximal lipolytic response was 18.58 and 10.81 pmol.min-1.10(6) cells-1 in control and trained rats, respectively. Thus a positive relationship existed between lipolysis and AC activity, with a tighter coupling in trained rats. Lipolysis in response to exogenous cAMP tended to be greater in trained than in control rats, and the difference was statistically significant for 50 microM and 10 mM cAMP. Our finding support the concept that the major mechanism of enhanced lipolysis in trained rats was an increase in the activity of enzymatic step(s) distal to cAMP.


2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Priya Moorjani ◽  
Sriram Sankararaman ◽  
Qiaomei Fu ◽  
Molly Przeworski ◽  
Nick J Patterson ◽  
...  

The study of human evolution has been revolutionized by inferences from ancient DNA analyses. Key to these is the reliable estimation of the age of ancient specimens. The current best practice is radiocarbon dating, which relies on characterizing the decay of radioactive carbon isotope (14C), and is applicable for dating up to 50,000-year-old samples. Here, we introduce a new genetic method that uses recombination clock for dating. The key idea is that an ancient genome has evolved less than the genomes of extant individuals. Thus, given a molecular clock provided by the steady accumulation of recombination events, one can infer the age of the ancient genome based on the number of missing years of evolution. To implement this idea, we take advantage of the shared history of Neanderthal gene flow into non-Africans that occurred around 50,000 years ago. Using the Neanderthal ancestry decay patterns, we estimate the Neanderthal admixture time for both ancient and extant samples. The difference in these admixture dates then provides an estimate of the age of the ancient genome. We show that our method provides reliable results in simulations. We apply our method to date five ancient Eurasian genomes with radiocarbon dates ranging between 12,000 to 45,000 years and recover consistent age estimates. Our method provides a complementary approach for dating ancient human samples and is applicable to ancient non-African genomes with Neanderthal ancestry. Extensions of this methodology that use older shared events may be able to date ancient genomes that fall beyond the radiocarbon frontier.


2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (26) ◽  
pp. 239
Author(s):  
Jorge Leonardo González Calderón ◽  
Jairo Jamith Palacios Rozo ◽  
Julio Alberto Perea Sandoval

Business Intelligence (BI)  is one of the business tools on which competitive advantages of various world-class companies are based. Also in the highly competitive and changing global environment, the ability of an organization to detect changes,  make decisions and  to do a fast implementation, is the difference between  grow or disappear; this attribute in an organization  is named Organizational  Agility (AO). In this paper, through the systematic review of the literature, the state of art of both fields (BI and AO) is established and in particular studies examining the relationship between the two. The research about this relation is beginning, and therefore is a field with much to explore.About BI, its evolution is denoted  on the concepts of maturity, technical and analytical technologies.  Referring to organizational  agility, the concept  is reviewed  as such and  factors that promote, with special  emphasis on the factors for the couple of concepts. The conclusion is that a positive relationship is two-way, the AO is favored with BI projects in BI mature companies,  and agile enterprises obtain better results of BI.


2005 ◽  
Vol 201 ◽  
pp. 536-537
Author(s):  
Sukyoung. Yi ◽  
T. Brown ◽  
S. Heap ◽  
I. Hubeny ◽  
W. Landsman ◽  
...  

Pinning down the ages of high redshift galaxies is the most direct way of constraining the galaxy formation epoch. There has been a debate on the age of LBDS 53W091, a red galaxy at z=1.5. The discrepancy in the age estimates of various groups is due to the difference in the population synthesis model. However, there is generally a good agreement among popular models. Polishing the models and assessing their internal uncertainties are crucial in the analysis of high redshift galaxies.


Biology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 33
Author(s):  
Christine Green ◽  
Jessica P. Rickard ◽  
Simon P. de Graaf ◽  
Angela J. Crean

Males can adjust sperm motility instantaneously in response to the perceived risk of sperm competition. The speed of this response suggests that sperm motility is regulated by changes in seminal plasma rather than changes in the sperm cells themselves. Hence, here we test whether inter-ejaculate variation in seminal plasma can be used to alter sperm quality prior to use in assisted reproductive technologies. We supplemented fresh ejaculates of Merino rams with seminal plasma collected from previous ‘donor’ ejaculates to test whether changes in sperm kinetics were related to the relative quality of donor to focal ejaculates. We found a positive relationship between the change in sperm traits before and after supplementation, and the difference in sperm traits between the donor and focal ejaculate. Hence, sperm motility can be either increased or decreased through the addition of seminal plasma from a superior or inferior ejaculate, respectively. This positive relationship held true even when seminal plasma was added from a previous ejaculate of the same ram, although the slope of the relationship depended on the identity of both the donor and receiver ram. These findings indicate that seminal plasma plays a key role in the control and regulation of sperm kinetics, and that sperm kinetic traits can be transferred from one ejaculate to another through seminal plasma supplementation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 129 (5) ◽  
pp. 1161-1172
Author(s):  
Kanji Matsukawa ◽  
Ryota Asahara ◽  
Kei Ishii ◽  
Mayo Kunishi ◽  
Yurino Yamashita ◽  
...  

We found using wireless near-infrared spectroscopy that prefrontal oxygenation increased before the onset of arbitrary over-ground walking, whereas the preexercise increase was absent when walking was suddenly started by cue. The difference in prefrontal oxygenation between start modes (considered related to central command) preceded heart rate response variances and demonstrated a positive relationship with the difference in heart rate. The central command-related prefrontal activity may contribute to cardiac adjustment, synchronized with the beginning of over-ground walking.


2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 218-231
Author(s):  
Elda Du Toit

The main aim of this study was to test whether there is a positive relationship between different financial risk measures and the expected return of a share. This study was performed in 1995 by Brümmer and Wolmarans, who obtained results contrary to those of a similar study in the United States of America in 1988. The reasons for the difference were not established. This study follows up the one by Brümmer and Wolmarans to determine whether the passing of 19 years could have brought about any difference in the results. This process was initiated by testing a set of variables from a sample size of 107 JSE-listed companies from 2002 to 2012 for linearity. As there was no such linear relationship between any of the variables, no assumptions can be made about any relationship between share return and the risk measures tested here. If investors were risk averse, one would expect a positive relationship between different financial risk measures and the expected return of a share. This is not the case in the South African market.


Author(s):  
L.M. Ashnokova ◽  
M.N. Namitokova

In the article the author considers the issue that currently mentality is influenced primarily by economic, social, cultural, religious, political factors. The most important factor affecting the mentality, behavior, character of an individual, social group is religion. Today in the world the mental traits of any social group, especially youth, are more susceptible to change, since the historical development of the mentality of young people is more dynamic than the development of the mentality of other demographic groups, as it is more susceptible to innovation and innovation. Most young Russians in all regions of our multi-confessional country perceive themselves as believers. The difference in religious beliefs contributes to the separation of the youth social group. To prevent religious conflicts, it is important to form a tolerant attitude of representatives of different faiths to each other. It is indicated that the so-called imaginary religiosity appeared, when only external religiosity is presented without a deep internal commitment to dogma. These processes are most clearly visible among young people. The confessional identification of the young generation of Russians in most cases is determined purely ethnically. Often young people determine their religion not by deep convictions, but by a formal-ethnic principle. It is emphasized that at present in Russian society there are not enough cultural and moral prerequisites for the revival of genuine religious spirituality, and the difference in religious beliefs contributes to the separation of the youth environment.


2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (20) ◽  
pp. 5652-5657 ◽  
Author(s):  
Priya Moorjani ◽  
Sriram Sankararaman ◽  
Qiaomei Fu ◽  
Molly Przeworski ◽  
Nick Patterson ◽  
...  

The study of human evolution has been revolutionized by inferences from ancient DNA analyses. Key to these studies is the reliable estimation of the age of ancient specimens. High-resolution age estimates can often be obtained using radiocarbon dating, and, while precise and powerful, this method has some biases, making it of interest to directly use genetic data to infer a date for samples that have been sequenced. Here, we report a genetic method that uses the recombination clock. The idea is that an ancient genome has evolved less than the genomes of present-day individuals and thus has experienced fewer recombination events since the common ancestor. To implement this idea, we take advantage of the insight that all non-Africans have a common heritage of Neanderthal gene flow into their ancestors. Thus, we can estimate the date since Neanderthal admixture for present-day and ancient samples simultaneously and use the difference as a direct estimate of the ancient specimen’s age. We apply our method to date five Upper Paleolithic Eurasian genomes with radiocarbon dates between 12,000 and 45,000 y ago and show an excellent correlation of the genetic and 14C dates. By considering the slope of the correlation between the genetic dates, which are in units of generations, and the 14C dates, which are in units of years, we infer that the mean generation interval in humans over this period has been 26–30 y. Extensions of this methodology that use older shared events may be applicable for dating beyond the radiocarbon frontier.


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