scholarly journals Explore or reset? Pupil diameter transiently increases in self-chosen switches between cognitive labor and leisure in either direction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Algermissen ◽  
Erik Bijleveld ◽  
Nils B. Jostmann ◽  
Rob W. Holland
Keyword(s):  
Pupil Diameter ◽  
Pupil Dilation ◽  
Alternative Possibilities ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Cognitive Work ◽  
Current Task ◽  
Related Trade ◽  
Alternative Activities

AbstractWhen people invest effort in cognitive work, they often keep an eye open for rewarding alternative activities. Previous research suggests that the norepinephrine (NE) system regulates such trade-offs between exploitation of the current task and exploration of alternative possibilities. Here we examine the possibility that the NE-system is involved in a related trade-off, i.e., the trade-off between cognitive labor and leisure. We conducted two pre-registered studies (total N = 62) in which participants freely chose to perform either a paid 2-back task (labor) vs. a non-paid task (leisure), while we tracked their pupil diameter—which is an indicator of the state of the NE system. In both studies, consistent with prior work, we found (a) increases in pupil baseline and (b) decreases in pupil dilation when participants switched from labor to leisure. Unexpectedly, we found the same pattern when participants switched from leisure back to labor. Both increases in pupil baseline and decreases in pupil dilation were short-lived. Collectively, these results are more consistent with a role of norepinephrine in reorienting attention and task switching, as suggested by network reset theory, than with a role in motivation, as suggested by adaptive gain theory.

Are speed/accuracy trade-offs caused by neuromotor noise, or not?

1997 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 306-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
Willem P. De Jong ◽  
Gerard P. Van Galen
Keyword(s):  
Kinematic Model ◽  
Psychological Processes ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Kinematic Theory ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Biomechanical Constraints ◽  
Speed Accuracy ◽  
Existing Data ◽  
The Way

Notwithstanding its overwhelming descriptive power for existing data, it is not clear whether the kinematic theory of Plamondon & Alimi could generate new insights into biomechanical constraints and psychological processes underlying the way organisms trade off speed for accuracy. The kinematic model should elaborate on the role of neuromotor noise and on biomechanical strategies for reducing endpoint variability related to such noise.

scholarly journals Herbivore Population Dynamics in Response to Plant Allocation Strategies

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fang Ji ◽  
Christopher R Stieha ◽  
Karen C Abbott
Keyword(s):  
Food Limitation ◽  
Energetic Cost ◽  
Insect Herbivores ◽  
Insect Outbreaks ◽  
Tolerance Mechanisms ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Plant Allocation ◽  
Allocation Strategies

Abstract When herbivores feed, plants may respond by altering the quantity of edible biomass available to future feeders through mechanisms such as compensatory regrowth of edible structures or allocation of biomass to inedible reserves. Previous work showed that some forms of compensatory regrowth can drive insect outbreaks, but this work assumed regrowth occurred without any energetic cost to the plant. While this is a useful simplifying assumption for gaining preliminary insights, plants face an inherent trade-off between allocating energy to regrowth versus storage. Therefore, we cannot truly understand the role of compensatory regrowth in driving insect outbreaks without continuing on to more realistic scenarios. In this paper, we model the interaction between insect herbivores and plants that have a trade-off between compensatory regrowth and allocation to inedible reserves in response to herbivory. We found that the plant's allocation strategy, described in our model by parameters representing the strength of the overcompensatory response and the rates at which energy is stored and mobilized for growth, strongly affect whether herbivore outbreaks occur. Additional factors, such as the strength of food limitation and herbivore interference while feeding, influence the frequency of the outbreaks. Overall, we found a possible new role of overcompensation to promote herbivore fluctuations when it co-occurs with allocation to inedible reserves. We highlight the importance of considering trade-offs between tolerance mechanisms that plants use in response to herbivory by showing that new dynamics arise when different plant allocation strategies occur simultaneously.

scholarly journals The Influence of Intrinsic Motivation on Decisions Between Actions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ignasi Cos ◽  
Gustavo Deco ◽  
Matthieu Gilson
Keyword(s):  
Pupil Diameter ◽  
Motor Adaptation ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Social Pressure ◽  
Brain Dynamics ◽  
Motor Behaviour ◽  
Cortical Areas ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Speed Accuracy

Abstract Extensive research explains how pre-frontal cortical areas process explicit rewards, and how pre-motor and motor cortices are recipients of that processing to energize motor behaviour. However, the specifics of motor behaviour, decisions between actions and brain dynamics when driven by no explicit reward, remain poorly understood. Are patterns of decision and motor control altered wen performing under social pressure? Are the same brain regions that typically process explicit rewards also involved in this expression of motivation? To answer these questions, we designed a novel task of decision-making between precision reaches and manipulated motivation by means of social pressure, defined by the presence or absence of virtual partner of a higher/lower aiming skill than our participants. We assessed the overall influence of this manipulation by analysing movements, decisions, pupil dilation and electro-encephalography. We show that the presence of a partner consistently increased aiming accuracy along with pupil diameter, furthermore the more skilled the partner. Remarkably, increased accuracy is attained by faster movements, consistently with a vigour effect that breaches speed-accuracy trade-offs typical of motor adaptation. This implicated an ensemble of cortical sources including pre-frontal areas, concerned with the processing of reward, but also pre-motor and occipital sources, consistent with the nature of the task. Overall, these results strongly suggest the role of social pressure as a motivational drive, enabling an increase of both vigour and accuracy in a non-trivial fashion.

The Future of Liberal Democracies, Pandemic Trade-Offs, and the Role of Social Sciences

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Radoslaw Markowski
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Previous Knowledge ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Norms And Values ◽  
The Future ◽  
Democratic Norms

The article is written in the form of an essay (for Dahrendorf Symposium), speculative in essence, yet based on the new selected evidence concerning peoples’ opinions and attitudes disclosed during the pandemic. It starts with remarks about predictions in social sciences and the complex problems in studying the shocks created by the Covid-19 pandemic. Second part is devoted to major challenges and trade-offs states, governments and citizens have to face currently, focusing on one particular which is crucial for the future quality of liberal democracies, that is a trade-off between democratic norms and values and surveillance practices. The article concludes with a discussion of several issues, which have become more salient during the pandemic, challenging our previous knowledge about them.

scholarly journals Considering the Impacts of Metal Depletion on the European Electricity System

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 1560
Author(s):  
Lei Xu ◽  
Zongfei Wang ◽  
Hasan Ümitcan Yilmaz ◽  
Witold-Roger Poganietz ◽  
Hongtao Ren ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Energy System ◽  
Assessment Model ◽  
Total System ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Electricity System ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Resource Policy ◽  
Related Trade ◽  
Policy Targets

The transformation of the European electricity system could generate unintended environment-related trade-offs, e.g., between greenhouse gas emissions and metal depletion. The question thus emerges, how to shape policy packages considering climate change, but without neglecting other environmental and resource-related impacts. In this context, this study analyzes the impacts of different settings of potential policy targets using a multi-criteria analysis in the frame of a coupled energy system and life cycle assessment model. The focus is on the interrelationship between climate change and metal depletion in the future European decarbonized electricity system in 2050, also taking into account total system expenditures of transforming the energy system. The study shows, firstly, that highly ambitious climate policy targets will not allow for any specific resource policy targets. Secondly, smoothing the trade-off is only possible to the extent of one of the policy targets, whereas, thirdly, the potential of recycling as a techno-economic option is limited.

Bee, hummingbird, or mixed-pollinated Salvia species mirror pathways to pollination optimization: a morphometric analysis based on the Pareto front concept

Botany ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 95 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina M. Strelin ◽  
Federico Sazatornil ◽  
Santiago Benitez-Vieyra ◽  
Mariano Ordano
Keyword(s):  
Pareto Front ◽  
Individual Contribution ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Flower Shape ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Hummingbird Pollination ◽  
Joint Contribution ◽  
Pollination Systems ◽  
Flower Structures

Optimization of flower phenotypes to ensure pollination by agents differing in their match with fertile flower structures can involve fitness trade-offs if the aspects of the phenotype that enhance the fitness contribution of one pollinator are detrimental for pollination by the other agents. If these trade-offs are substantial, flower optimization for specialized pollination is expected. However, optimization for generalized pollination may also take place in trade-off scenarios, as long as the joint contribution of two or more types of pollinators to global pollination fitness is greater than each individual contribution. We used an observational approach to evaluate the role of pollination fitness trade-offs in flower trait optimization, a matter seldom addressed because of the difficulties in conducting experiments. A pattern-searching tool based on the Pareto front concept, borrowed from the fields of economics and engineering, was used to test for fitness trade-off patterns in the flower shape of four Salvia (Lamiaceae) species. Two are pollinated exclusively either by bees or by hummingbirds; the remaining species have mixed-pollination systems, with varying contributions of bee and hummingbird pollination. The patterning of flower shape in this study suggests a bee–hummingbird pollination trade-off in Salvia, and the optimization of generalized flower shapes.

scholarly journals The diversity-ability trade-off in scientific problem solving

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuli Reijula ◽  
Jaakko Kuorikoski
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
High Ability ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Scientific Problem ◽  
Scientific Problem Solving ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Problem Solvers ◽  
Problem Solving Task

According to the diversity-beats-ability theorem, groups of diverse problem solvers can outperform groups of high-ability problem solvers. We argue that the model introduced by Lu Hong and Scott Page (2004; see also Grim et al. 2019) is inadequate for exploring the trade-off between diversity and ability. This is because the model employs an impoverished implementation of the problem-solving task. We present a new version of the model which captures the role of ‘ability’ in a meaningful way, and use it to explore the trade-offs between diversity and ability in scientific problem solving.

scholarly journals Condition-dependent trade-offs maintain honest signaling: A laboratory experiment

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Szabolcs Számadó ◽  
Flóra Samu ◽  
Károly Takács
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Laboratory Experiment ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Honest Signaling ◽  
Handicap Principle ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Honest Signals ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Dominant Paradigm

AbstractHow and why animals and humans signal reliably is a key issue in biology and social sciences. For many years the dominant paradigm in biology was the Handicap Principle. It claims a causal relationship between honesty and signal cost and thus predicts that honest signals have to be costly to produce. However, contrary to the Handicap Principle, game theoretical models predict that honest signaling is maintained by condition dependent signaling trade-offs and honest signals need not be costly at the equilibrium. Due to the difficulties of manipulating signal cost and signal trade-offs there is surprisingly little evidence to test these predictions either from biology or from social sciences. Here we conduct a human laboratory experiment with a two-factorial design to test the role of equilibrium signal cost vs. signalling trade-offs in the maintenance of honest communication. We have found that the trade-off condition has much higher influence on the reliability of communication than the equilibrium cost condition. The highest level of honesty was observed in the condition dependent trade-off condition as predicted by recent models. Negative production cost, i.e. fix benefit-contrary to the prediction of the Handicap Principle-promoted even higher level of honesty than the other type of costs under this condition.

scholarly journals Element content and distribution has limited, tolerance metric dependent, impact on salinity tolerance in cultivated sunflower (Helianthus annuus)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.A. Temme ◽  
V.A. Burns ◽  
L.A. Donovan
Keyword(s):  
Helianthus Annuus ◽  
Salinity Tolerance ◽  
Ion Homeostasis ◽  
Element Content ◽  
Elemental Content ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Organ Level ◽  
Highly Correlated ◽  
Related Trade

AbstractDisruption of ion homeostasis is a major component of salinity stress’s effect on crop yield. In cultivated sunflower prior work revealed a trade-off between vigor and salinity tolerance. Here we determined the association of elemental content/distribution traits with salinity tolerance, both with and without taking this trade-off into account. We grew seedlings of twelve Helianthus annuus genotypes in two treatments (0/100 mM NaCl). Plants were measured for biomass (+allocation), and element content (Na, P, K, Ca, Mg, S, Fe, B, Mn, Cu, Zn) in leaves (young and mature), stem, and roots. Genotype tolerance was determined by the proportional decline in biomass and as the deviation from the expected vigor/tolerance trade-off. Genotype rankings on these metrics were not the same. Elemental content and allocation/distribution were highly correlated both at the plant and organ level. Suggestive associations between tolerance and elemental traits were fewer and weaker than expected and differed by tolerance metric. Given the highly correlated nature of elemental content, it remains difficult to pinpoint specific traits underpinning tolerance. Results do show that taking vigor related trade-offs into account is important in determining traits related to tolerance and that the multivariate nature of associated traits should be considered.

scholarly journals Balancing selection via life-history trade-offs maintains an inversion polymorphism in a seaweed fly

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Mérot ◽  
Violaine Llaurens ◽  
Eric Normandeau ◽  
Louis Bernatchez ◽  
Maren Wellenreuther
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Balancing Selection ◽  
Natural Populations ◽  
Inversion Polymorphism ◽  
Antagonistic Pleiotropy ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Survival And Reproduction ◽  
Coelopa Frigida

AbstractHow genetic diversity is maintained in natural populations is an evolutionary puzzle. Over time, genetic variation within species can be eroded by drift and directional selection, leading to the fixation or elimination of alleles. However, some loci show persistent variants at intermediate frequencies for long evolutionary time-scales, implicating a role of balancing selection, but studies are seldom set up to uncover the underlying processes. Here, we identify and quantify the selective pressures involved in the widespread maintenance of an inversion polymorphism in the seaweed fly Coelopa frigida, using an experimental evolution approach to estimate fitness associated with different allelic combinations. By precisely evaluating reproductive success and survival rates separately, we show that the maintenance of the polymorphism is governed by a life-history trade-off, whereby each inverted haplotype has opposed pleiotropic effects on survival and reproduction. Using numerical simulations, we confirm that this uncovered antagonism between natural and sexual selection can maintain inversion variation in natural populations of C. frigida. Moreover, our experimental data highlights that inversion-associated fitness is affected differently by sex, dominance and environmental heterogeneity. The interaction between these factors promotes polymorphism maintenance through antagonistic pleiotropy. Taken together, our findings indicate that combinations of natural and sexual selective mechanisms enable the persistence of diverse trait in nature. The joint dynamics of life history trade-offs and antagonistic pleiotropy documented here is likely to apply to other species where large phenotypic variation is controlled by structural variants.Significance statementPersistence of chromosomal rearrangements is widespread in nature and often associated with divergent life-history traits. Understanding how contrasted life-history strategies are maintained in wild populations has implications for food production, health and biodiversity in a changing environment. Using the seaweed fly Coelopa frigida, we show that a polymorphic chromosomal inversion is maintained by a trade-off between survival and reproduction, and thus provide empirical support for a role of balancing selection via antagonistic pleiotropy. This mechanism has long been overlooked because it was thought to only apply to a narrow range of ecological scenarios. These findings empirically reinforce the recent theoretical predictions that co-interacting factors (dominance, environment and sex) can lead to polymorphism maintenance by antagonistic pleiotropy and favour life-history variation.

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