Susceptibility of agency judgments to social influence

The experience of agency refers to the phenomenal experience of being the causal source of one’s own actions, and through them, the course of events in the outside world. This experience is crucial for the production of adaptive actions, and for the adequate communication of felt action control to peers. The present study examines the possibility that, on certain occasions and under specific internal and external constraints, people rely on explicit social information provided by their peers to revise their self-reports of perceived control, i.e., their judgment of agency. Specifically, we used a novel ecological task based on an interactive computer game. We manipulated well-known sensorimotor agency cues related to action control, as well as social information communicated to participants by two advisors. We measured the contributions of social and non-social sources of information to agency judgments. We found that at the single-trial level, participants align their JoA with advisor feedback based on their own performance during the task, the type of feedback provided by advisors, and the interaction of this social feedback with the sensorimotor agency cues. At the same time, JoA alignment in previous trial also predicted participants’ tendency to revise their JoA after social feedback. Overall, these results demonstrate that agency judgment is subject to social influence. This influence is the result of the integration of social and non-social information at the scale of a single judgment, while also being driven by repeated past interactions with peers.

Activities of Food Retail Companies in Poland during the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Context of Food Security

This paper deals with a very important topic concerning the adaptive actions of food retail entities, operating in a network model, during threats caused by a pandemic. The aim of the study was to identify and characterize the actions taken by food retail chain entities during the COVID-19 pandemic, in the context of the food security of consumers in Poland (using the example of Wielkopolska). A basic research hypothesis (H0) was generated, stating that the adaptation activities of food retail chain actors varied during the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland with regard to ensuring consumer food security. It was detailed in five sub-hypotheses. In their verification and in the realization of the aim of the study, the methods of literature study and other secondary sources, and induction, survey, comparative, visualization, modeling and descriptive statistics, were used. The research results include (a) the authors' diagnosis of threats to the food security of companies in the food system resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, and applied ways of adaptation to the new requirements of the environment, based on secondary sources; (b) analysis of data from the empirical survey conducted by the authors in November 2020 on the adaptive actions of companies, among managers/owners of food retail stores of a selected network of a particular franchise type in Greater Poland; (c) the construction of an empirical model of the typical behaviors of food retail units in the chain under study, distinguishing three of their types in the model; and (d) suggestions concerning the directions of future scientific research areas. The article was prepared following the stream of sustainable development theory.

Multi-annual prediction of drought and heat stress to support decision making in the wheat sector

Drought and heat stress affect global wheat production and food security. Since these climate hazards are expected to increase in frequency and intensity due to anthropogenic climate change, there is a growing need for effective planning and adaptive actions at all timescales relevant to the stakeholders and users in this sector. This work aims at assessing the forecast quality in predicting the evolution of drought and heat stress by using user-relevant agro-climatic indices such as Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) and Heat Magnitude Day Index (HMDI) on a multi-annual timescale, as this time horizon coincides with the long-term strategic planning of stakeholders in the wheat sector. We present the probabilistic skill and reliability of initialized decadal forecast to predict these indices for the months preceding the wheat harvest on a global spatial scale. The results reveal the usefulness of the study in a climate services context while showing that decadal climate forecasts are skillful and reliable over several wheat harvesting regions.

Functional actions of hands and tools influence attention in peripersonal space

Human perceptual and attentional systems operate to help us perform functional and adaptive actions in the world around us. In this review, we consider different regions of peripersonal space—peri-hand space, reachable space, and tool space when used in both peri- and extrapersonal space. Focusing on behavioural and electrophysiology/event-related potentials (EEG/ERP) studies using comparable target detection paradigms, we examine how visuospatial attention is facilitated or differentiated due to the current proximity and functional capabilities of our hands and the tools we hold in them. The functionality of the hand and tool is defined by the action goals of the user and the available functional affordances or parts available to achieve the goals. Finally, we report recent tool-use studies examining how the distribution of attention to tool space can change as a result of tool functionality and directional action crossing peripersonal and extrapersonal space boundaries. We propose that the functional capabilities of the hand and tools direct attention to action-relevant regions of peripersonal space. Although neural mechanisms such as bimodal neurons may enhance the processing of visual information presented in near-hand regions of peripersonal space, functional experience and the relevance of the space for upcoming actions more strongly direct attention within regions of peripersonal space. And, while some aspects of functionality can be extended into extrapersonal space, the multimodal nature of peripersonal space allows it to be more modifiable in the service of action.

Which Meteorological and Climatological Information Is Requested for Better Surfing Experiences? A Survey-Based Analysis

This paper extends the work of previous research by investigating surfing practices and surf-recreation companies from a behavioral perspective. The study’s main aim is to gain insights into the role of meteorological/climatological information in decision-making related to the surf-tourism activities market. This information was gathered employing an online survey that asked respondents about where they surf and how they check forecasts for surfing. Climate services (CS) are promoted to support the decision-making process to better prepare for and adapt to the risks and opportunities of climate variability and change. The current market for CS is still in its early stages. In this paper, we report the findings from our recent investigation into the actual and potential market for CS for the Iberian Peninsula surf-tourism sector. Based on surfers’ and surf companies’ demands, it was found that an improved surfing climate service (herein, SCS) will have clear implications in the management of these tourism areas and provide insights into whether surfing activities may be successful. At the same time, such services can help to manage adaptive actions in regard to the impacts of climate change in surfing areas.

Estimating the potential effects of climate change on GDP in the agriculture sector by countries in the ASEAN region

This study estimates the potential effects of climate change on GDP in the agriculture sector in the ASEAN region based on historic data from 1995-2018. An econometric panel model is applied to examine the impact of the changing climatic and non-climate variables AGDP. The empirical estimation results show that some significant and insignificant. Based on estimation results, if the policymaker is concerned about climate change actions, it helps more comprehensive risk decision-making, and policy exertions should be concentrated toward climate change to the total gross domestic product in the ASEAN region. Under projections of the future climate change, the simulation results reveal that the substantial change in GDP in agriculture in the ASEAN region arises due to the fluctuation of temperature and precipitation. For instance, GDP in the agriculture sector would be decreased by 0.27% to 0.90% in response to different scenarios over the century. Therefore, it is necessary to take immediate adaptive actions appropriately to mitigate the decrease in GDP in the agriculture sector in the ASEAN region.

How storms affect fishers’ decisions about going to sea

Fishermen are known to try to avoid fishing in stormy weather, as storms pose a physical threat to fishers, their vessels, and their gear. In this article, a dataset and methods are developed to investigate the degree to which fishers avoid storms, estimate storm aversion parameters, and explore how this response varies across vessel characteristics and across regions of the United States. The data consist of vessel-level trip-taking decisions from six federal fisheries across the United States combined with marine storm warning data from the National Weather Service. The estimates of storm aversion can be used to parameterize predictive models. Fishers’ aversion to storms decreases with increasing vessel size and increases with the severity of the storm warning. This information contributes to our understanding of the risk-to-revenue trade-off that fishers evaluate every time they consider going to sea, and of the propensity of fishers to take adaptive actions to avoid facing additional physical risk.