An experimental reassessment of complex NP islands with NP-scrambling in Japanese

There is little consensus in the Japanese syntax literature on the question of whether complex NPs with a complement clause headed by to yuu ‘that say’ are islands for NP-scrambling dependencies. To explore this question, we conducted two acceptability judgment experiments using the factorial definition of islands to test the island status of noun complements, relative clauses (which are complex NPs, but uniformly considered islands in the literature), and coordinated NP structures (which are also uniformly considered islands in the literature). Our first experiment yielded clear evidence that relative clauses and coordinated NPs are islands, and that noun complements are not. Our second experiment replicated the relative clause and coordinated NP results, but yielded an inconclusive null result for noun complements. Taken together, our results suggest either that noun complements are not islands, or that noun complements yield a small island effect that cannot be reliably detected at the typical sample sizes of 30-40 participants used here. We also investigated between- and within-participant variability in our results. We observe no evidence of increased between-participant variability for noun complements relative to other islands, and no increase of within-participant variability for noun complements relative to grammatical NP-scrambling, thus corroborating our conclusions. Our results have consequences for a number of issues that have been encoded in current syntactic theories of island effects, including the correlation between syntactic constituent complexity and island status (e.g., number of bounding nodes or phase heads), and the correlation between complementizer deletion and island status (e.g., the complement/adjunct distinction).

Modulating Cortical Instrument Representations During Auditory Stream Segregation and Integration With Polyphonic Music

Numerous neuroimaging studies demonstrated that the auditory cortex tracks ongoing speech and that, in multi-speaker environments, tracking of the attended speaker is enhanced compared to the other irrelevant speakers. In contrast to speech, multi-instrument music can be appreciated by attending not only on its individual entities (i.e., segregation) but also on multiple instruments simultaneously (i.e., integration). We investigated the neural correlates of these two modes of music listening using electroencephalography (EEG) and sound envelope tracking. To this end, we presented uniquely composed music pieces played by two instruments, a bassoon and a cello, in combination with a previously validated music auditory scene analysis behavioral paradigm (Disbergen et al., 2018). Similar to results obtained through selective listening tasks for speech, relevant instruments could be reconstructed better than irrelevant ones during the segregation task. A delay-specific analysis showed higher reconstruction for the relevant instrument during a middle-latency window for both the bassoon and cello and during a late window for the bassoon. During the integration task, we did not observe significant attentional modulation when reconstructing the overall music envelope. Subsequent analyses indicated that this null result might be due to the heterogeneous strategies listeners employ during the integration task. Overall, our results suggest that subsequent to a common processing stage, top-down modulations consistently enhance the relevant instrument’s representation during an instrument segregation task, whereas such an enhancement is not observed during an instrument integration task. These findings extend previous results from speech tracking to the tracking of multi-instrument music and, furthermore, inform current theories on polyphonic music perception.

Word learning in the field: Adapting a laboratory-based task for testing in remote Papua New Guinea

Adapting laboratory psycholinguistic methods to fieldwork contexts can be fraught with difficulties. However, successful implementation of such methods in the field enhances our ability to learn the true extent and limitations of human behavior. This paper reports two attempts to run word learning experiments with the small community of Nungon speakers in Towet village in the Saruwaged Mountains, Papua New Guinea. A first attempt involved running a cross-situational task in which word-object pairings were presented ambiguously in each trial, and an explicit word learning task in which pairings were presented explicitly, or unambiguously, in each trial. While this quickly garnered a respectable 34 participants over the course of a week, it yielded null results, with many participants appearing to show simple patterned responses at test. We interpreted the null result as possibly reflecting the unfamiliarity of both the task and the laptop-based presentation mode. In Experiment 2, we made several adjustments to the explicit word learning task in an attempt to provide clearer instructions, reduce cognitive load, and frame the study within a real-world context. During a second 11-day stay in the village, 34 participants completed this modified task and demonstrated clear evidence of word learning. With this success serving as a future guide for researchers, our experiences show that it may require multiple attempts, even by experienced fieldworkers familiar with the target community, to successfully adapt experiments to a field setting.

Temporal difference thresholds and repetitive stimulation: Can click trains improve temporal sensitivity?

Trains of auditory clicks increase subsequent judgements of stimulus duration by approximately 10%. Scalar timing theory suggests this is due to a 10% increase in pacemaker rate, a main component of the internal clock. The effect has been demonstrated in many timing tasks, including verbal estimation, temporal generalisation, and temporal bisection. However, the effect of click trains has yet to be examined on temporal sensitivity, commonly measured by temporal difference thresholds. We sought to investigate this both experimentally; where we found no significant increase in temporal sensitivity, and computationally; by modelling the temporal difference threshold task according to scalar timing theory. Our experimental null result presented three possibilities which we investigated by simulating a 10% increase in pacemaker rate in a newly-created scalar timing theory model of thresholds. We found that a 10% increase in pacemaker rate led to a significant improvement in temporal sensitivity in only 8.66% of 10,000 simulations. When a 74% increase in pacemaker rate was modelled to simulate the filled-duration illusion, temporal sensitivity was significantly improved in 55.36% of simulations. Therefore, scalar timing theory does predict improved temporal sensitivity for a faster pacemaker, but the effect of click trains (a supposed 10% increase) appears to be too small to be reliably found in the temporal difference threshold task.

Illusion of control in farmers’ investment and financing decisions

PurposePeople’s tendency to overestimate their ability to control random events, known as illusion of control, can affect financial decisions under uncertainty. This study developed an artifactual field experiment on illusion of control for a farm machinery investment.Design/methodology/approachIn an experiment with two treatments, the individual farmer was either given or not given a sense of control over a random outcome. After each decision, the authors elicited perceived control, and a questionnaire collected additional indirect measures of illusion of control from 78 German farmers and 10 farm advisors.FindingsThe results did not support preregistered hypotheses of the presence of illusion of control. This null result was robust over multiple outcomes and model specifications. The findings demonstrate that cognitive biases may be small and difficult to replicate.Research limitations/implicationsThe sample is not representative for the German farming population. The authors discuss why the estimated treatment effect may represent a lower bound of the true effect.Originality/valueIllusion of control is well-studied in laboratory settings, but little is known about the extent to which farmers’ behavior is influenced by illusion of control.

No Evidence That Believers in Conspiracy Theories Have More Negative Attitudes Toward Transhumanism

Conspiracy theories regularly refer to the allegedly transhumanist agenda of the elites. We hypothesized that believers in conspiracy theories would hold more unfavorable attitudes toward the transhumanist movement. We examined the association between belief in conspiracy theories and attitudes toward transhumanism in two pre-registered studies (based on two French samples, total N after exclusion = 550). We found no evidence of a negative relation between belief in conspiracy theories and attitudes toward transhumanism. This null result was further corroborated by Bayesian analyses, equivalence test, and an internal mini meta-analysis. This work plays a precursor role in understanding the attitudes toward an international cultural and intellectual movement that continues to grow in popularity and influence.

POS1383 THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN BARIATRIC SURGERY AND DUPUYTREN DISEASE: A COHORT STUDY FROM SWEDISH NATIONWIDE HEALTHCARE REGISTRIES

Background:Dupuytren disease (DD) is multifactorial, with several genetic and environmental risk factors contributing to disease susceptibility. High body mass index, however, was suggested to be protective of DD.1 The impact of weight loss among obese patients on DD has not been assessed to date.Objectives:To assess the association between bariatric surgery and DD in a secondary care setting.Methods:We performed a propensity score (PS)-matched cohort study using data from Swedish nationwide healthcare registries (patient registry [secondary care], causes of death registry, prescribed drug registry). Patients aged 30-79 years who underwent bariatric surgery between 2006 and 2019 were matched to up to 2 obese bariatric surgery-free patients (called unexposed patients) based on their PS. PS-matching was carried out in risk set sampling to reduce selection bias, within 4 sequential cohort entry blocks to account for time trend biases. The outcome DD was defined as a diagnosis of DD in secondary care or partial or total fasciotomy of wrist or hand. After a 1-year run-in period, patients were followed in an “as-treated” approach. We applied Cox proportional hazard regression to calculate hazard ratios (HR) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of incident DD among bariatric surgery patients when compared to obese unexposed patients overall, and in subgroups of age, sex, bariatric surgery type, and by duration of follow-up.Results:A total of 34 959 bariatric surgery patients were PS-matched to 54 769 obese unexposed patients. A total of 71.6% of bariatric surgery patients were women. Bariatric surgery patients had a mean age of 45.5 years and a mean follow-up of 6.9 years. All patient characteristics in obese unexposed patients were highly similar. We observed 126 and 136 severe DD cases among bariatric surgery and obese unexposed patients, respectively. The risk of DD was significantly increased in bariatric surgery patients compared to obese unexposed patients (HR = 1.30, 95% CI 1.02-1.65). The risk of DD was higher in women (HR = 1.36, 95% CI 1.00-1.84) than in men (HR = 1.05, 95% CI 0.70-1.58). Age did not modify the risk of DD among bariatric surgery patients compared to obese unexposed patients. Malabsorptive bariatric surgery yielded an increased risk of DD when compared to obese unexposed patients (HR = 1.33, 95% CI 1.04-1.71), while restrictive bariatric surgery yielded a null result. The risk of DD increased with duration of follow-up (>5 years of follow-up: HR = 1.63, 95% CI 1.14-2.34, null result in earlier follow-up).Conclusion:Our results suggest that substantial weight loss is associated with a latent increased risk of severe DD in an obese population. This observation further strengthens current evidence that high body mass index is protective against DD. The latency of risk increase of DD after bariatric surgery may suggest that slowly adapting metabolic changes may be part of the mechanism of DD emergence.References:[1]Hacquebord JH, Chiu VY, Harness NG. The Risk of Dupuytren Surgery in Obese Individuals. J Hand Surg Am. 2017, 42: 149–55.Acknowledgements:We thank Prof. Dr. Jesper Lagergren (Karolinksa Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden) for hosting Dr. Theresa Burkard for a research stay at the Upper Gastrointestinal Surgery Group and making the data available for use. Furthermore, we thank Dr. Giola Santoni (Karolinksa Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden) for her technical support.Disclosure of Interests:None declared

Null-Result Test for Effect on Weight from Large Electrostatic Charge

We report test results searching for an effect of electrostatic charge on weight. For conducting test objects of mass of order 1 kg, we found no effect on weight, for potentials ranging from 10 V to 200 kV, corresponding to charge states ranging from 10−9 to over 10−5 coulombs, and for both polarities, to within a measurement precision of 2 g. While such a result may not be unexpected, this is the first unipolar, high-voltage, meter-scale, static test for electro-gravitic effects reported in the literature. Our investigation was motivated by the search for possible coupling to a long-range scalar field that could surround the planet, yet go otherwise undetected. The large buoyancy force predicted within the classical Kaluza theory involving a long-range scalar field is falsified by our results, and this appears to be the first such experimental test of the classical Kaluza theory in the weak field regime, where it was otherwise thought identical with known physics. A parameterization is suggested to organize the variety of electro-gravitic experiment designs.

There is no special condition where a velocity of a light wave is invariance in all inertial frames.

This study of the literature reveals that the concept such as the velocity of a light wave is invariance in all inertial frames is wrong. A velocity of any motion always depends upon its reference frame. There is no special condition present in nature where the velocity is invariance in all inertial frames. Galileo Galilei defined speed is the distance covered per unit of time. Sir Isaac Newton defined velocity is the speed with direction. In the same period, physicists introduced the concept such as wavelength and frequency for measuring the speed a wave. The wave motion in which cycles are repeating after the same interval of time with the same distance between them. In 1887, Albert A. Michelson and Edward W. Morley performed an experiment to detect ether medium. But they failed to prove the existence of the ether medium and published Null Result. This Null Result has led to the creation of various new hypothetical theories. This study tries to reveal the relation between mathematics and physics and also comprehensive literature of light is a particle-wave duality in nature.

There is no special condition where a velocity of a light wave is invariance in all inertial frames.

This study of the literature reveals that the concept such as the velocity of a light wave is invariance in all inertial frames is wrong. A velocity of any motion always depends upon its reference frame. There is no special condition present in nature where the velocity is invariance in all inertial frames. Galileo Galilei defined speed is the distance covered per unit of time. Sir Isaac Newton defined velocity is the speed with direction. In the same period, physicists introduced the concept such as wavelength and frequency for measuring the speed a wave. The wave motion in which cycles are repeating after the same interval of time with the same distance between them. In 1887, Albert A. Michelson and Edward W. Morley performed an experiment to detect ether medium. But they failed to prove the existence of the ether medium and published Null Result. This Null Result has led to the creation of various new hypothetical theories. This study tries to reveal the relation between mathematics and physics and also comprehensive literature of light is a particle-wave duality in nature.