scholarly journals European starlings recognize the location of robotic conspecific attention

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 20140665 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shannon R. Butler ◽  
Esteban Fernández-Juricic
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Group Cohesion ◽  
Spatial Location ◽  
European Starlings ◽  
Orientation Behaviour

Looking where others are allocating attention can facilitate social interactions by providing information about objects or locations of interest. We asked whether European starlings follow the orientation behaviour of conspecifics owing to their highly gregarious behaviour. Starlings reoriented their attention to follow that of a robot around a barrier more often than when the robot's attention was directed elsewhere. This is the first empirical evidence of reorienting in response to conspecific attention in a songbird. Starlings may use this behaviour to obtain fine-tuned spatial information from conspecifics (e.g. direction of predator approach, spatial location of food patches), enhancing group cohesion.

A Neural Network Model of Flexible Spatial Updating

2004 ◽  
Vol 91 (4) ◽  
pp. 1608-1619 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert L. White ◽  
Lawrence H. Snyder
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Reference Frame ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Target Location ◽  
Target Position ◽  
Spatial Location ◽  
Spatial Updating ◽  
Gaze Shift ◽  
Fixed Reference ◽  
Gaze Position

Neurons in many cortical areas involved in visuospatial processing represent remembered spatial information in retinotopic coordinates. During a gaze shift, the retinotopic representation of a target location that is fixed in the world (world-fixed reference frame) must be updated, whereas the representation of a target fixed relative to the center of gaze (gaze-fixed) must remain constant. To investigate how such computations might be performed, we trained a 3-layer recurrent neural network to store and update a spatial location based on a gaze perturbation signal, and to do so flexibly based on a contextual cue. The network produced an accurate readout of target position when cued to either reference frame, but was less precise when updating was performed. This output mimics the pattern of behavior seen in animals performing a similar task. We tested whether updating would preferentially use gaze position or gaze velocity signals, and found that the network strongly preferred velocity for updating world-fixed targets. Furthermore, we found that gaze position gain fields were not present when velocity signals were available for updating. These results have implications for how updating is performed in the brain.

Social Skills Training for the Handicapped in Mainstream Classrooms

1983 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 14-17
Author(s):  
Paul Gannon
Keyword(s):  
Social Skills ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Social Skills Training ◽  
Skills Training ◽  
Peer To Peer ◽  
Good Teacher ◽  
Teacher Student ◽  
Mainstream Classrooms

AbstractThis paper argues strongly that the survival of handicapped students in mainstream classes depends essentially on good teacher-student and peer-to-peer social interactions. Supporting empirical evidence is provided and the essential approach needed to facilitate the required interactions is outlined.

Lesions of the Vestibular System Disrupt Hippocampal Theta Rhythm in the Rat

2006 ◽  
Vol 96 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noah A. Russell ◽  
Arata Horii ◽  
Paul F. Smith ◽  
Cynthia L. Darlington ◽  
David K. Bilkey
Keyword(s):  
Vestibular System ◽  
Hippocampal Neurons ◽  
Theta Rhythm ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Power Spectral Analysis ◽  
Spatial Location ◽  
Lesion Group ◽  
Movement Velocity ◽  
Ca1 Neurons ◽  
Ca1 Region

The hippocampus has a major role in memory for spatial location. Theta is a rhythmic hippocampal EEG oscillation that occurs at ∼8 Hz during voluntary movement and that may have some role in encoding spatial information. We investigated whether, as part of this process, theta might be influenced by self-movement signals provided by the vestibular system. The effects of bilateral peripheral vestibular lesions, made ≥60 days prior to recording, were assessed in freely moving rats. Power spectral analysis revealed that theta in the lesioned animals had a lower power and frequency compared with that recorded in the control animals. When the electroencephalography (EEG) was compared in epochs matched for speed of movement and acceleration, theta was less rhythmic in the lesioned group, indicating that the effect was not a result of between-group differences in this behavior. Blood measurements of corticosterone were also similar in the two groups indicating that the results could not be attributed to changes in stress levels. Despite the changes in theta EEG, individual neurons in the CA1 region of lesioned animals continued to fire with a periodicity of ∼8 Hz. The positive correlation between cell firing rate and movement velocity that is observed in CA1 neurons of normal animals was also maintained in cells recorded from lesion group animals. These findings indicate that although vestibular signals may contribute to theta rhythm generation, velocity-related firing in hippocampal neurons is dependent on nonvestibular signals such as sensory flow, proprioception, or motor efference copy.

ORIENTATION BEHAVIOUR IN STICKLEBACKS: MODIFIED BY EXPERIENCE OR POPULATION SPECIFIC?

Behaviour ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 137 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 833-843 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna Girvan ◽  
Victoria Braithwaite
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Information ◽  
Information Use ◽  
Environment Interaction ◽  
Spatial Cues ◽  
Orientation Behaviour ◽  
Gene By Environment Interaction ◽  
Rearing Conditions ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
Contrasting Habitats

AbstractTo investigate the mechanisms underlying preferred spatial information use in Three-spined sticklebacks we reared fish derived from contrasting habitats (pond and river populations) under a range of conditions. The rearing conditions were designed to determine whether the spatial information used by sticklebacks is population specific, whether it is learned or whether it is produced by an interaction between these two factors. Fish reared under different conditions were trained to solve two experimental tasks to determine what spatial information they preferred to use. The results indicate that the fish learned spatial cues relevant to the environment that they were raised in but there was also evidence of a gene by environment interaction that influenced which spatial cues were learned.

scholarly journals Gene selection for optimal prediction of cell position in tissues from single-cell transcriptomics data

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (11) ◽  
pp. e202000867 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jovan Tanevski ◽  
Thin Nguyen ◽  
Buu Truong ◽  
Nikos Karaiskos ◽  
Mehmet Eren Ahsen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Single Cell ◽  
Spatial Organization ◽  
Gene Selection ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Spatial Clustering ◽  
Spatial Location ◽  
Spatial Arrangement ◽  
Fish Embryo ◽  
Hybridization Data ◽  
Silver Standard

Single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNAseq) technologies are rapidly evolving. Although very informative, in standard scRNAseq experiments, the spatial organization of the cells in the tissue of origin is lost. Conversely, spatial RNA-seq technologies designed to maintain cell localization have limited throughput and gene coverage. Mapping scRNAseq to genes with spatial information increases coverage while providing spatial location. However, methods to perform such mapping have not yet been benchmarked. To fill this gap, we organized the DREAM Single-Cell Transcriptomics challenge focused on the spatial reconstruction of cells from the Drosophila embryo from scRNAseq data, leveraging as silver standard, genes with in situ hybridization data from the Berkeley Drosophila Transcription Network Project reference atlas. The 34 participating teams used diverse algorithms for gene selection and location prediction, while being able to correctly localize clusters of cells. Selection of predictor genes was essential for this task. Predictor genes showed a relatively high expression entropy, high spatial clustering and included prominent developmental genes such as gap and pair-rule genes and tissue markers. Application of the top 10 methods to a zebra fish embryo dataset yielded similar performance and statistical properties of the selected genes than in the Drosophila data. This suggests that methods developed in this challenge are able to extract generalizable properties of genes that are useful to accurately reconstruct the spatial arrangement of cells in tissues.

scholarly journals Coding of social novelty in the hippocampal CA2 region and its disruption and rescue in a mouse model of schizophrenia

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Macayla L. Donegan ◽  
Fabio Stefanini ◽  
Torcato Meira ◽  
Joshua A. Gordon ◽  
Stefano Fusi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mouse Model ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Pyramidal Neurons ◽  
Social Memory ◽  
Spatial Location ◽  
Memory Deficits ◽  
Spatial Coding ◽  
Social Stimuli ◽  
The Social ◽  
22Q11.2 Microdeletion

AbstractThe hippocampal CA2 region is essential for social memory and has been implicated in neuropsychiatric disorders. However, little is known about how CA2 neural activity encodes social interactions and how this coding is altered in disease. We recorded from CA2 pyramidal neurons as mice engaged in social interactions and found that while CA2 failed to stably represent spatial location, CA2 activity encoded contextual changes and novel social stimuli. In the Df(16)A+/- mouse model of the human 22q11.2 microdeletion, a major schizophrenia risk factor, CA2 activity showed a surprising increase in spatial coding while failing to encode social novelty, consistent with the social memory deficit in these mice. Previous work has shown that CA2 pyramidal neurons are hyperpolarized in Df(16)A+/- mice, likely as a result of upregulation of TREK-1 K+ current. We found that administration of a TREK-1 antagonist rescued the social memory deficits and restored normal CA2 coding properties in Df(16)A+/- mice, supporting a crucial role for CA2 in the encoding of novel social stimuli and social dysfunction.

scholarly journals Observing grooming promotes affiliation in Barbary macaques

2018 ◽  
Vol 285 (1893) ◽  
pp. 20181964 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliette M. Berthier ◽  
Stuart Semple
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Matched Control ◽  
Control Period ◽  
Bird Species ◽  
Group Cohesion ◽  
Barbary Macaques ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Relaxing Effect

Observing friendly social interactions makes people feel good and, as a result, then act in an affiliative way towards others. Positive visual contagion of this kind is common in humans, but whether it occurs in non-human animals is unknown. We explored the impact on female Barbary macaques of observing grooming, a behaviour that physiological and behavioural studies indicate has a relaxing effect on the animals involved. We compared females' behaviour between two conditions: after observing conspecifics groom, and in a matched control period. We found that observing grooming was associated with reduced behavioural indicators of anxiety, suggesting that seeing others groom is, in itself, relaxing. Observing grooming was also associated with a shorter latency to becoming involved in a grooming bout (and higher likelihood both of initiating that bout and being the groomer rather than groomee), and with elevated rates of other affiliative behaviours. These results provide evidence for positive visual contagion; this phenomenon may contribute fundamentally to group cohesion not just in this species, but also in the many mammal and bird species where grooming occurs. Our study highlights the importance of exploring social behaviour beyond the level of the interacting individuals, within the broader social context where it occurs.

Segmentation Free Word Spotting for Handwritten Documents Using Bag of Visual Words Based on Co-HOG Descriptor

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 49-65
Author(s):  
Thontadari C. ◽  
Prabhakar C. J.
Keyword(s):  
Visual Information ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Spatial Location ◽  
Visual Word ◽  
Bag Of Visual Words ◽  
Word Spotting ◽  
Handwritten Documents ◽  
Visual Words ◽  
Handwritten Document ◽  
Free Word

In this article, the authors propose a segmentation-free word spotting in handwritten document images using a Bag of Visual Words (BoVW) framework based on the co-occurrence histogram of oriented gradient (Co-HOG) descriptor. Initially, the handwritten document is represented using visual word vectors which are obtained based on the frequency of occurrence of Co-HOG descriptor within local patches of the document. The visual word representation vector does not consider their spatial location and spatial information helps to determine a location exclusively with visual information when the different location can be perceived as the same. Hence, to add spatial distribution information of visual words into the unstructured BoVW framework, the authors adopted spatial pyramid matching (SPM) technique. The performance of the proposed method evaluated using popular datasets and it is confirmed that the authors' method outperforms existing segmentation free word spotting techniques.

THE NEXT GENERATION SPATIAL DATA WAREHOUSE

2002 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 633
Author(s):  
A.J. Yardley
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Data ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Essential Element ◽  
Spatial Location ◽  
Geographic Information ◽  
Environmental Data ◽  
Next Generation ◽  
Data Types ◽  
Political Boundaries ◽  
Access To Data

Woodside Energy, based in Perth, Western Australia, has commenced the implementation of its next generation spatial data warehousing and visualisation system. The warehouse facilitates access to data in various corporate geoscience data sets, as well as up-to-date cultural and environmental data. It expands the capabilities of the existing geoscience database by providing a facility to handle spatial data at the database level rather than in files and maps. Spatial data can now be kept in the database, in its correct spatial location, and with a known provenance.Woodside’s worldwide exploration, development and production activities require the use of a wide variety of geographic data such as seismic, bathymetry, wells, permits, coastlines, political boundaries, navigation charts, remote sensing and geological interpretations.Geo-spatial data comes to Woodside in a variety of formats, datums and conditions. The Geomatics Department, through the Geoscience Database and Spatial Information Management teams, loads, maintains and manages all data considered to be corporate. It is quality controlled and placed into the warehouse, where it is readily accessible to technical and administrative staff.Location is an essential element in most Woodside decisions. Because of the new spatial capabilities, a number of geographic information processes are now possible. Additionally information can also be made available through the internet if required.Reliable geographic information will become more widely available in the organisation, and be more easily merged with traditional data types, enhancing the decision-making process.

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