Is Your Restaurant Worth the Risk? A Motivational Perspective on Reviews’ Rating Distribution and Volume

This research aims to understand diners’ risk-taking tendencies when referring to online reviews to make restaurant decisions as a function of dining motivations (i.e., intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivations). Two experiments jointly reveal that given a positive valence, restaurants with a centralized rating distribution are preferred over those with a polarized rating distribution, and such a preference is accounted for by perceived risk. The preference for restaurants with a centralized (vs. polarized) rating distribution is more pronounced among customers exhibiting extrinsic motivation compared with those exhibiting intrinsic motivation. In addition, a high rating volume can temper the negative effects of polarized reviews on dining decisions among intrinsically motivated consumers but not extrinsically motivated consumers. Consistent with our theorization, the dining motivation– and rating volume–conditioned effects of rating distribution on restaurant visit intention are also mediated by perceived risk. These findings provide important insights for academic researchers and managerial practitioners.

Loss of Photosynthetic RhythmThermal Plasticity Under Domestication and Repurposing Drivers of Circadian Clock (DOC) Loci for Adaptive Breeding in Barley

Circadian clock rhythms are critical to control physiological and development traits, allowing, plants to adapt to changing environments. Here we show that the circadian rhythms of cultivated barley (Hordeum vulgare) have slowed and amplitude increased under domestication by comparing with its wild ancestor (H. spontaneum). Moreover, we show a significant loss of thermal plasticity during barley evolution for the period and more extensively for amplitude. Our genetic analysis indicates that wild allele at epistatic loci, which mutually condition clock variation and its thermal plasticity in interspecific crosses, are absent in a contemporary barley breeding panel. These epistatic interactions include conditioned effects of Drivers of Circadian (DOC) clock loci on chromosome 3 and 5, which mediate amplitude decrease and period lengthening, respectively, under domestication. Notably, two significant loci, DOC3.1 and DOC5.1, which are not associated with clock diversity in cultivated breeding material, do show pleiotropic effects on flowering time and grain yield at multiple experimental sites across the U.S. in a temperature-dependent manner. We suggest that transition from winter growth of wild barley (H. spontaneum) to spring growth of modern cultivars included the loss and repurposing of circadian clock regulators to yield adaptation by mechanisms yet to be clarified.Significance statementCircadian clock rhythms are crucial factors affecting crop adaptation to changing environments. If faced with increased temperature plants could respond with temperature compensation adaptation and maintain clock rhythms, or they can change period and/or amplitude to adapt. We used a combination of approaches: high-throughput clock analysis under optimal and elevated heat conditions, genome-wide association study (GWAS) with cultivated and wild diversity panels to identify changes under domestication and quantitative trait loci (QTL) that control the clock and its responses, and QTL-environment association for testing environmentally-conditioned effects of these QTLongrain yield and flowering timingacross US. Our findings provide insights into changes of circadian rhythms under domestication and genetic tools for plant breeders to develop better-adapted cultivars to changing environments.

Highlight Article: Conditioning the neuroimmune response to ethanol using taste and environmental cues in adolescent and adult rats

Our work in adult Sprague-Dawley rats has shown elevation of the cytokine Interleukin (IL)-6 in the hippocampus and amygdala following acute and repeated binge-like doses of ethanol during intoxication. Previously, we have shown that in adults, the central IL-6 response to a sub-threshold dose of ethanol was sensitized by repeated pairings of ethanol as an unconditioned stimulus (US) with an odor conditioned stimulus (CS).In the present studies, acute ethanol exposure (4 g/kg intraperitoneal) was paired with a combined odor and taste cue using a single trial learning procedure, after which rats were tested for conditioned effects of the CS on neuroimmune gene expression. We found that IL-6 was significantly elevated in the amygdala based on exposure to the CS after just one CS–US pairing in young adolescent rats (age P32–40), an effect that was more modest in young adults (P72–80). These data indicate that, despite a normal disposition toward a blunted neuroimmune response to ethanol, adolescents were more sensitive than adults to forming learned associations between ethanol’s neuroimmune effects and conditioned stimuli. Given the emergent role of the immune system in alcoholism, such as regulating ethanol intake, these ethanol-induced conditioned effects on cytokine levels may contribute to our understanding of the unique attributes that make adolescence a time period of vulnerability in the development of later alcohol abuse behaviors. Impact statement A combined odor and taste cue was paired with a binge-like ethanol exposure (4 g/kg intraperitoneal) using a single-trial learning paradigm. Re-exposure to the CS alone was sufficient to evoke a conditioned Interleukin (IL)-6 elevation in the amygdala in adolescents, an effect that was not observed in young adults. This demonstrates a particular sensitivity of adolescents to alcohol-associated cues and neuroimmune learning, whereas prior work indicated that adults require multiple pairings of ethanol to the CS in order to achieve a conditioned amygdala IL-6 response. While the role of immune conditioning has been studied in other drugs of abuse, these findings highlight a previously unknown aspect of alcohol-related learning. Given the emergent importance of the neuroimmune system in alcohol abuse, these findings may be important for understanding cue-induced reinstatement of alcohol intake among problem drinkers.

From Biological Constraints to Flexible Behavior Systems:Extending Our Knowledge of Sexual Conditioning in Japanese Quail

The traditional learning view involves the general process theory of learning that focuses on identifying universal principles that apply to all species capable of learning from experience, and that operate across a wide variety of situations. Examples of behavior that contradict general-process conceptions of learning have been in the past referred to as “biological constraints”. Traditional learning theorists choose to consider these examples as exceptions to otherwise universal principles of learning. On the contrary, the typical ethologist is more likely to be concerned with how specific behaviors may have evolved and in an animal’s species typical responses to stimuli they are likely to encounter in their natural environment. However, they also fail to embrace animal learning phenomena that occurs in the laboratory into their theoretical framework. Behavior systems represent an alternative to this view by providing a link between traditional views of learning and ethology. They conceptualize experiential learning not as a set of universal principles, butas species typical processes that reflect the specific demands of the ecological niche in which the species evolved. The current paper reviews and brings-to-date Domjan’s formulation of a sexual behavior system in male Japanese quail. The system includes a stimulus dimension consisting of species typical cues, local cues, and contextual cues, and a response dimension consisting of general search, focal search, and copulatory behavior. Domjan’sformulation includes two diagrams that include symbols that represent unconditioned and conditioned effects within the system. Our modification of the system focuses on additional and up-to-date conditioned effects. In general, adding conditioning to the system increases potential stimulus and response variation, thereby increasing the flexibility of the system as it has evolved as a result of continued observation and experimentation.