Once Good, Always Good? Testing Nudge’s Spillovers on Pro Environmental Behavior

It is a common assumption to believe that encouraging pro environmental behavior (PEB) in one domain would lead to increased PEB in other domains (best-case scenario) or just be restricted to the initial targeted domain (worst-case scenario). Evidence from a rapidly growing literature on moral licensing suggests that interventions targeting behavioral change could lead to an even worse scenario, with individuals starting to underperform in one domain, as a compensation for their good performance in other domains. We propose to study the dynamic of PEBs when individuals are exposed to a specific nudge (priming) via an original experiment designed to capture actual behavior. We found that priming could increase PEB, but does not thwart moral licensing. Primed individuals end up doing worse than non-primed individual under a moral licensing condition. A more comprehensive view of the mechanisms underlying behavioral change is essential to support sustainable policies.

Little Support for Discrete Item Limits in Visual Working Memory

Some theorists argue that working memory is limited to a discrete number of items, and additional items are not encoded at all. Others assume that all items are represented with variable quality. Adam, Vogel, and Awh (2017) presented evidence supporting the item-limit hypothesis: Participants reproduced visual features of up to six items in a self-chosen order. After the third or fourth response, error distributions were indistinguishable from guessing. I present four experiments with young adults (each N=24) testing the assumption that the brief, simultaneous display of visual arrays has led to failures of encoding in the experiments of Adam et al. (2017). Experiment 1 presented items slowly and sequentially. Experiment 2 presented them simultaneously but longer than in the experiments of Adam et al. (2017). Experiments 3 and 4 exactly replicated one original experiment. There was no evidence for an encoding limit. However, all four experiments failed to replicate the evidence for guessing-like error distributions. Modelling data from individuals revealed a mixture of some who do and others who don’t produce guessing-like distributions. This heterogeneity increases the credibility of an alternative to the item-limit hypothesis: Some individuals decide to guess on hard trials even when they have weak information in memory.

COVID-19 related anxieties do not decrease support for liberal democracy

Studies carried out at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic confirmed that under the impression of fear individuals were more willing to tolerate violations of liberal-democratic norms, and supported discriminatory policies to preserve public safety. But what are the potential consequences of the pandemic on citizens’ attitudes beyond its peak? We conducted an original experiment in which we manipulate individuals’ cognitive accessibility of their fears related to COVID-19 one and a half years after the onset of the pandemic. We fielded the experiment in Hungary and Romania–two cases most likely to see such attitudes amplify under the condition of fear. Our intervention was successful in elevating respondents’ levels of worry, anxiety, and fear when thinking about infectious diseases like COVID-19. However, these emotions did not affect individuals’ levels of rightwing authoritarianism, nationalism, or outgroup hostility, or their preferences for specific discriminatory policies aimed to fight a potential resurgence of COVID-19.

We Need to Talk

Americans today are affectively polarized: they dislike and distrust those from the opposing political party more than they did in the past, with damaging consequences for their democracy. This Element tests one strategy for ameliorating such animus: having ordinary Democrats and Republicans come together for cross-party political discussions. Building on intergroup contact theory, the authors argue that such discussions will mitigate partisan animosity. Using an original experiment, they find strong support for this hypothesis – affective polarization falls substantially among subjects who participate in heterogeneous discussion (relative to those who participate in either homogeneous political discussion or an apolitical control). This Element also provides evidence for several of the mechanisms underlying these effects, and shows that they persist for at least one week after the initial experiment. These findings have considerable importance for efforts to ameliorate animus in the mass public, and for understanding American politics more broadly.

Reflecting on 50 years: The University Without Walls and integrative interdisciplinary learning

The University Without Walls experiment on the University of Massachusetts, Amherst campus, began in 1971. The central animating concepts of the original experiment include the value of knowledge that is learned both within and without ‘the walls’ of the university. These various knowledge sources are integrated into the student’s individualized plan of study within an interdisciplinary analytic framework. This approach is described here as integrative interdisciplinary studies and its on-going strength as an approach to adult learning is in the synergy of these approaches. An integrative interdisciplinary approach supports transformative learning within a context-specific understanding of knowledge.

NUMERICAL STUDY OF THE TEMPERATURE FIELD FOR Fe3Al LASER WELDING

The main objective of this paper was focused on a numerical study related to a proper evaluation of the temperature field during the laser-welding process. The investigated material used for the experiments was Fe3Al, given its properties and promising application potential. The original experiment was based on a 3D model of a butt weld. However, to reduce the computational complexity, a planar variant of the heat-transfer equation with suitable choices of surface and volumetric heat sources, given by modified Gaussian pulses, is used to model the temperature distribution in the fixed cross cut during the laser welding. Subsequently, the numerical scheme based on the discontinuous Galerkin method was employed to evaluate the temperature field more properly and to identify the main characteristics of the molten zone. Finally, the numerical study was performed for various combinations of the welding parameters, such as laser-beam power and welding speed. The obtained results were in good agreement with the expected behavior, and thus illustrate the optimization potential of the proposed numerical scheme in the similar issues of a laser-welding processes.

The Search of Diffusive Properties in Ambient Seismic Noise

ABSTRACT Ambient seismic noise (ASN) is becoming of interest for geophysical exploration and engineering seismology, because it is possible to exploit its potential for imaging. Theory asserts that the Green’s function can be retrieved from correlations within a diffuse field. Surface waves are the most conspicuous part of Green’s function in layered media. Thus, the velocities of surface waves can be obtained from ASN if the wavefield is diffuse. There is widespread interest in the conditions of emergence and properties of diffuse fields. In the applications, useful approximations of the Green’s function can be obtained from cross correlations of recorded motions of ASN. An elastic field is diffuse if the background illumination is azimuthally uniform and equipartitioned. It happens with the coda waves in earthquakes and has been verified in carefully planned experiments. For one of these data sets, the 1999 Chilpancingo (Mexico) experiment, there are some records of earthquake pre-events that undoubtedly are composed of ASN, so that the processing for coda can be tested on them. We decompose the ASN energies and study their equilibration. The scheme is inspired by the original experiment and uses the ASN recorded in an L-shaped array that allows the computation of spatial derivatives. It requires care in establishing the appropriate ranges for measuring parameters. In this search for robust indicators of diffusivity, we are led to establish that under certain circumstances, the S and P energy equilibration is a process that anticipates the diffusion regime (not necessarily isotropy), which justifies the use of horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratio in the context of diffuse-field theory.

Two Replication Studies of a Time-Reversed (Psi) Priming Task and the Role of Expectancy in Reaction Times

Two experiments involving an international collaboration of experimenters sought to replicate and extend a previously published psi experiment on precognition by Daryl Bem that has been the focus of extensive research. The experiment reverses the usual cause–effect sequence of a standard psychology experiment using priming and reaction times. The preregistered confirmatory hypothesis is that response times to incongruent stimuli will be longer than response times to congruent stimuli even though the prime has not yet appeared when the participant records their judgments. The confirmatory hypothesis for Experiment 1 was not supported. Exploratory analyses indicated that those participants who completed the English-language version rather than a translation showed a significant effect, as was the case in the original study; no significant departure from chance was found in data involving non-English translations. Experiment 2 sought to enhance the predicted effect by having each participant read either a pro-psi or an anti-psi statement at the beginning of the experiment to test the pre-recorded hypothesis that a pro-psi statement would produce a larger effect than an anti-psi statement. The results did not support the primary psi hypothesis and there was no effect in the English-language sample. However, there was mixed support for the effect of the psi statement on performance; those participants who received the pro-psi statement had a greater psi score than those who received the anti-psi statement. As in the original experiment, neither the experimenters’ nor participants’ beliefs were significantly associated with the dependent measure. In sum, the pre-registered confirmatory hypotheses were not supported. The importance of the personality variable Sensation Seeking, a component of extraversion, as a correlate of psi performance is discussed as are the challenges and implications for international collaborations and replication in controversial science. Keywords: priming; expectancy effect; retrocausation; consciousness; sociology; precognition; psi; replication Two experiments involving an international collaboration of experimenters sought to replicate and extend a previously published psi experiment on precognition by Daryl Bem that has been the focus of extensive research. The experiment reverses the usual cause-effect sequence of a standard psychology experiment using priming and reaction times. The preregistered confirmatory hypothesis is that response times to incongruent stimuli will be longer than response times to congruent stimuli even though the prime has not yet appeared when the participant records his or her judgments. The confirmatory hypothesis for Study 1 was not supported. Exploratory analyses indicated that those participants who completed the English-language version rather than a translation showed a significant effect, as was the case in the original study; no significant departure from chance was found in data involving non-English translations. Study 2 sought to enhance the predicted effect by having each participant read either a pro-psi or an anti-psi statement at the beginning of the experiment to test the pre-recorded hypothesis that a pro-psi statement would produce a larger effect than an anti-psi statement. The results did not support the primary psi hypothesis and there was no observed association between belief and experience of ESP and psi outcome. However, there was mixed support for the effect of the psi statement on performance; those participants who received the pro-psi statement had a greater psi score than those who received anti-psi statement. As in the original experiment, neither the experimenters’ nor participants’ beliefs or expectations were significantly correlated with the dependent measure. In sum, the pre-registered confirmatory hypotheses were not supported. The importance of the personality variable Sensation Seeking, a component of extraversion, as a correlate of psi performance is discussed as are the challenges and implications for international collaborations and replication in controversial science.

New Blade Profile of VAWT: Experimental and Analysis to Introduce It in Urban Cites

The use of wind turbines for small-scale and urban applications is a topic that is receiving increasing attention. The use of wind turbines for small-scale and urban applications is a topic that is receiving increasing attention. This work concerns the Savonius rotor. It is divided into three parts. The first one consists in an original experiment which has led to the direct measurement of the pressure field on the blades of a rotating Savonius rotor. In the second part, the results are introduced in a generalized model to calculate the efforts which generate the vibrations at the rotor supports. This study explains well the vibratory behaviour of the rotor. Finally, in a third part an experiment analysis of an adequate system of a suspension to stabilise or avoid these vibrations is proposed. This study explains clearly the vibratory behaviour of the rotor.

Movement acts in breakdown situations: How a robot's recovery procedure affects participants' opinions

Recovery procedures are targeted at correcting issues encountered by robots. What are people’s opinions of a robot during these recovery procedures? During an experiment that examined how a mobile robot moved, the robot would unexpectedly pause or rotate itself to recover from a navigation problem. The serendipity of the recovery procedure and people’s understanding of it became a case study to examine how future study designs could consider breakdowns better and look at suggestions for better robot behaviors in such situations. We present the original experiment with the recovery procedure. We then examine the responses from the participants in this experiment qualitatively to see how they interpreted the breakdown situation when it occurred. Responses could be grouped into themes of sentience, competence, and the robot’s forms. The themes indicate that the robot’s movement communicated different information to different participants. This leads us to introduce the concept of movement acts to help examine the explicit and implicit parts of communication in movement. Given that we developed the concept looking at an unexpected breakdown, we suggest that researchers should plan for the possibility of breakdowns in experiments and examine and report people’s experience around a robot breakdown to further explore unintended robot communication.