A Multi-level Account of Selective Attention

Author(s):  
John T. Serences ◽  
Sabine Kastner

To achieve behavioural goals, relevant sensory stimuli must be processed more quickly and reliably than irrelevant distracters. The ability to prioritize relevant over irrelevant stimuli is usually referred to as selective information processing, or selective attention. Over the last 50–60 years, there has been an ongoing debate about the point along the sensory–response processing stream at which selective attention operates: are relevant and irrelevant inputs segregated early in processing based on low-level featural differences, or does this segregation occur late in processing after the meaning of each stimulus has been computed? As with nearly all dichotomies in psychology, the emerging consensus is that neither extreme is correct. Instead, depending on task demands, the mechanisms of selective attention can flexibly operate on the quality of low-level sensory representations as well as on later stages of semantic analysis and decision-making.

Author(s):  
Nina Rizun

In this chapter, the authors present the results of the development the text-mining methodology for increasing the reliability of the functioning of Socio-technical System (STS). Taking into account revealed strengths and weaknesses of Discriminant and Probabilistic approaches of Latent Semantic Relations analysis in of the abstracting and summarization projection, the Methodology of Two-level Single Document Summarization was developed. The Methodology assumes the following elements of novelty: based on obtaining a multi-level topical framework of the document (abstracting); uses the synergy effect of consistent usage the combination of two approaches for identification of conceptually significant elements of the text (summarization). The examples demonstrating the basic workability of proposed Methodology were presented. Such approaches should help human to increase the quality of supporting the decision-making processes of STS in real time.


Author(s):  
Anna Lipert ◽  
Remigiusz Kozłowski ◽  
Dariusz Timler ◽  
Michał Marczak ◽  
Kamila Musiał ◽  
...  

Background: The coronavirus pandemic and the government restrictions significantly disturbed the daily functioning of people, thereby influencing healthy behaviors, such as physical activity—the core indicator of well-being. This study evaluates the associations between physical activity (PA), the level of stress and quality of sleep during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. Methods: An online survey was distributed during the governmental lockdown in April 2020 and included measures for assessing physical activity, stress and sleep. The surveyed participants included all adults aged 18 years and over. The final data were collected from the 1959 respondents using: International Physical Activity Questionnaire-Short Form (IPAQ-SF), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). Findings: Almost half of the respondents indicated a low level of PA, performing only 60 min of PA daily. Most of the participants reported a moderate or high level of stress (57% and 29%, respectively) and 64% of them reported poor quality of sleep. People with low levels of stress performed on average 85.1 min/day of walking (WPA), 40.9 min/day of moderate PA (MPA) or 52.6 min/day of vigorous PA (VPA). People with good quality of sleep performed 82.9 min/day of WPA, 43.6 min/day MPA and 40.5 min/day VPA. Interpretation: The results from the study indicate that the volume of daily PA may be a predictor of the level of stress and sleep quality in adults during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. To retain a low level of stress and good quality of sleep, a lifestyle that allows to achieve a moderate level of physical activity should be maintained. The optimal daily dose of PA is at least 70 min per day, involving different intensities.


2020 ◽  
pp. 36-44
Author(s):  
S. V. Savina

At present, there is a weakening of the reproductive function of wages. This is especially noticeable on the example of a number of regions, which are characterized by a low level of average monthly wages compared to the all-Russian value and low purchasing power of wages, which extremely negatively affects the level and quality of working life of workers. Regional imbalances in the implementation of the reproductive function can be eliminated by developing the investment climate, modernizing existing industries, creating new effective jobs with decent wages, which implies the development of the intellectual, qualification and professional level of workers. Human development in the region is therefore a priority.


Author(s):  
I. I. Dmitrik ◽  
G. V. Zavgorodnyaya ◽  
M. I. Pavlova ◽  
N. A. Podkorytov

A large number of works are devoted to the development of the skin and hair cover of sheep, depending on their breed affiliation, age, feeding conditions and housing. The authors point out that along with other conditions the quality of wool and wool clip is greatly influenced by the conditions of the feeding of animals. A high level of feeding increases the wool clip and improves the quality of the wool and vice versa a low level reduces, causes thinning and worsens other physical properties of the wool. As is known, one of the significant factors that determine the increase in wool clip is the size of the animal and, consequently, the total area of the skin. The purpose of the research was to investigate the morphological traits of the development of the skin and wool cover in sheep of Prikatunsky meat and wool type. The research material was wool samples from four topographic areas of the animal’s body (side/thigh/back/belly) and skin (side) of different sex and age groups, selected from the animals of the studied groups. In the course of research, the quality of wool and indicators of the histostructure of the skin of Prikatunsky meat and wool type of sheep have been investigated. In terms of thick-haired of wool, replacement rams and gimbers of Prikatunsky meat and wool type of sheep were superior by 4,82 pcs. per mm² or 19,0 % and 4,41 pcs. per mm² or 15,8 % of adult animals, respectively. Balance secondary follicles/primary follicles in young animals were higher by 10,3 and 17,3 % compared to breeding rams and ewes. The wool of the replacement young animals was thinner by 7,28 and 4,78 microns and they were more thick-haired. The obtained data will be used in the mating campaign when mating program rams in order to improve the sheep of Prikatunsky meat and wool type.


1998 ◽  
Vol 80 (2) ◽  
pp. 1006-1010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark T. Wallace ◽  
M. Alex Meredith ◽  
Barry E. Stein

Wallace, Mark T., M. Alex Meredith, and Barry E. Stein. Multisensory integration in the superior colliculus of the alert cat. J. Neurophysiol. 80: 1006–1010, 1998. The modality convergence patterns, sensory response properties, and principles governing multisensory integration in the superior colliculus (SC) of the alert cat were found to have fundamental similarities to those in anesthetized animals. Of particular interest was the observation that, in a manner indistinguishable from the anesthetized animal, combinations of two different sensory stimuli significantly enhanced the responses of SC neurons above those evoked by either unimodal stimulus. These observations are consistent with the speculation that there is a functional link among multisensory integration in individual SC neurons and cross-modality attentive and orientation behaviors.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. e0248484
Author(s):  
Ena Bula-Oyola ◽  
Juan-Manuel Belda-Lois ◽  
Rosa Porcar-Seder ◽  
Álvaro Page

Introduction People with ulnar, radial or median nerve injuries can present significant impairment of their sensory and motor functions. The prescribed treatment for these conditions often includes electrophysical therapies, whose effectiveness in improving symptoms and function is a source of debate. Therefore, this systematic review aims to provide an integrative overview of the efficacy of these modalities in sensorimotor rehabilitation compared to placebo, manual therapy, or between them. Methods We conducted a systematic review according to PRISMA guidelines. We perform a literature review in the following databases: Biomed Central, Ebscohost, Lilacs, Ovid, PEDro, Sage, Scopus, Science Direct, Semantic Scholar, Taylor & Francis, and Web of Science, for the period 1980–2020. We include studies that discussed the sensorimotor rehabilitation of people with non-degenerative ulnar, radial, or median nerve injury. We assessed the quality of the included studies using the Risk of Bias Tool described in the Cochrane Handbook of Systematic Reviews of Interventions and the risk of bias across studies with the GRADE approach described in the GRADE Handbook. Results Thirty-eight studies were included in the systematic review and 34 in the meta-analysis. The overall quality of evidence was rated as low or very low according to GRADE criteria. Low-level laser therapy and ultrasound showed favourable results in improving symptom severity and functional status compared to manual therapy. In addition, the low level laser showed improvements in pinch strength compared to placebo and pain (VAS) compared to manual therapy. Splints showed superior results to electrophysical modalities. The clinical significance of the results was assessed by effect size estimation and comparison with the minimum clinically important difference (MCID). Conclusions We found favourable results in pain relief, improvement of symptoms, functional status, and neurophysiological parameters for some electrophysical modalities, mainly when applied with a splint. Our results coincide with those obtained in some meta-analyses. However, none of these can be considered clinically significant. Trial registration PROSPERO registration number CRD42020168792; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/display_record.php?RecordID=168792.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xinyang Ying ◽  
Guobing Zhou

Abstract The reversible data hiding allows original image to be completely recovered from the stego image when the secret data has been extracted, it is has drawn a lot of attentions from researchers. In this paper, a novel Taylor Expansion (TE) based stereo image reversible data hiding method is presented. Since the prediction accuracy is essential to the data hiding performance, a novel TE based predictor using correlations of two views of the stereo image is proposed. TE can fully exploit strong relationships between matched pixels in the stereo image so that the accuracy of the prediction can be improved. Then, histogram shifting is utilized to embed data to decrease distortion of stereo images, and multi-level hiding can increase embedding capacity. Experimental results show that the proposed method is superior to some existing data hiding methods considering embedding capacity and the quality of the stego stereo images.


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