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Author(s):  
Stefan Hinterwimmer ◽  
Umesh Patil

In this paper, we present experimental evidence from a ‘yes’/’no’ judgement task and twoacceptability rating studies (Experiments 1a-c) for the claim made in Hinterwimmer (2019) thatsentences with two anaphorically interpreted complex demonstratives are less acceptable thansentences with two anaphorically interpreted definite descriptions and sentences where one ofthe two previously introduced referents is picked up by a complex demonstrative, while the otherone is picked up by a definite description. The results of Experiment 1a and 1b are in principlecompatible with the account argued for in Hinterwimmer (2019), according to which the (potentiallyabstract) demonstrations presupposed by demonstratives may not have overlapping trajectories.However, sentences with two anaphorically interpreted complex demonstratives are not judgedas unacceptable as would be expected if they involved a presupposition violation. Therefore, wepropose an alternative, economy-based pragmatic account that builds on Ahn (2019) and Nowak(2019). The question of whether the observed pattern is more compatible with the accountproposed by Hinterwimmer (2019) or the alternative pragmatic account is directly addressed in afurther acceptability rating study (Experiment 1c). The design of that study is similar to that ofExperiment 1b, but it includes as fillers both sentences clearly violating a presupposition andsentences violating a pragmatic constraint. Since the ratings for sentences containing twoanaphorically interpreted complex demonstratives are closer to the ratings for sentences violatinga pragmatic constraint than for sentences violating a presupposition, we conclude that thealternative pragmatic account is preferable to the account by Hinterwimmer (2019).


2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (47) ◽  
pp. e2026046118
Author(s):  
Stefan Meyer ◽  
Paulo Santos ◽  
Fue Yang

We present experimental evidence of the impact of playing a game on real-life cooperation. The game was framed as a pest-management activity, the effectiveness of which depends on the decisions of others. Playing the game changes behavior in the field, increasing the participation in all collective activities directed at reducing pest pressure. The economic impact of those activities is important, leading to losses that are ∼20% lower than in the control group. Increased cooperation reflects changes in the understanding of others’ willingness to cooperate, not changes in the understanding of underlying technological interdependencies.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus Abbink ◽  
Lu Dong ◽  
Lingbo Huang

Communication is one of the most effective devices in promoting team cooperation. However, asymmetric communication sometimes breeds collusion and hurts team efficiency. Here, we present experimental evidence showing that excluding one member from team communication hurts team cooperation; the communicating partners collude in profit allocation against the excluded member, and the latter reacts by exerting less effort. Allowing the partners to reach out to the excluded member partially restores cooperation and fairness in profit allocation, but it does not stop the partners from talking behind that member’s back even when they could have talked publicly. The partners sometimes game the system by tricking the excluded member into contributing but then grabbing all profits for themselves. This paper was accepted by Axel Ockenfels, behavioral economics and decision analysis.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Suraj Borkar ◽  
Arun Ramachandran

AbstractIn classical wetting, the spreading of an emulsion drop on a surface is preceded by the formation of a bridge connecting the drop and the surface across the sandwiched film of the suspending medium. However, this widely accepted mechanism ignores the finite solubility of the drop phase in the medium. We present experimental evidence of a new wetting mechanism, whereby the drop dissolves in the medium, and nucleates on the surface as islands that grow with time. Island growth is predicated upon a reduction in solubility near the contact line due to attractive interactions between the drop and the surface, overcoming Ostwald ripening. Ultimately, wetting is manifested as a coalescence event between the parent drop and one of the islands, which can result in significantly large critical film heights and short hydrodynamic drainage times prior to wetting. This discovery has broad relevance in areas such as froth flotation, liquid-infused surfaces, multiphase flows and microfluidics.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (29) ◽  
pp. eabg1556
Author(s):  
Elnaz Ghotbi ◽  
Piao Ye ◽  
Taylor Ervin ◽  
Anni Kum ◽  
Judith Benes ◽  
...  

Polycomb-group (PcG) proteins are epigenetic regulators that maintain the transcriptional repression of target genes following their initial repression by transcription factors. PcG target genes are repressed in some cells, but active in others. Therefore, a mechanism must exist by which PcG proteins distinguish between the repressed and active states and only assemble repressive chromatin environments at target genes that are repressed. Here, we present experimental evidence that the repressed state of a Drosophila PcG target gene, giant (gt), is not identified by the presence of a repressor. Rather, de novo establishment of PcG-mediated silencing at gt is the default state that is prevented by the presence of an activator or coactivator, which may inhibit the catalytic activity of Polycomb-repressive complex 2 (PRC2).


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Thea G. Fennell ◽  
Grace A. Blackwell ◽  
Nicholas R. Thomson ◽  
Matthew J. Dorman

Members of the bacterial genus Vibrio utilize chitin both as a metabolic substrate and a signal to activate natural competence. Vibrio cholerae is a bacterial enteric pathogen, sub-lineages of which can cause pandemic cholera. However, the chitin metabolic pathway in V. cholerae has been dissected using only a limited number of laboratory strains of this species. Here, we survey the complement of key chitin metabolism genes amongst 195 diverse V. cholerae . We show that the gene encoding GbpA, known to be an important colonization and virulence factor in pandemic isolates, is not ubiquitous amongst V. cholerae . We also identify a putatively novel chitinase, and present experimental evidence in support of its functionality. Our data indicate that the chitin metabolic pathway within V. cholerae is more complex than previously thought, and emphasize the importance of considering genes and functions in the context of a species in its entirety, rather than simply relying on traditional reference strains.


Author(s):  
Sang-Ki Ko ◽  
Yo-Sub Han

We study the NFA reductions by invariant equivalences and preorders. It is well-known that the NFA minimization problem is PSPACE-complete. Therefore, there have been many approaches to reduce the size of NFAs in low polynomial time by computing invariant equivalence or preorder relation and merging the states within same equivalence class. Here we consider the nondeterminism reduction of NFAs by invariant equivalences and preorders. We, in particular, show that computing equivalence and preorder relation from the left is more useful than the right for reducing the degree of nondeterminism in NFAs. We also present experimental evidence for showing that NFA reduction from the left achieves the better reduction of nondeterminism than reduction from the right.


Demography ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sasha Shen Johfre ◽  
Aliya Saperstein ◽  
Jill A. Hollenbach

Abstract Will the rise of genetic ancestry tests (GATs) change how Americans respond to questions about race and ancestry on censuses and surveys? To provide an answer, we draw on a unique study of more than 100,000 U.S. adults that inquired about respondents' race, ancestry, and genealogical knowledge. We find that people in our sample who have taken a GAT, compared with those who have not, are more likely to self-identify as multiracial and are particularly likely to select three or more races. This difference in multiple-race reporting stems from three factors: (1) people who identify as multiracial are more likely to take GATs; (2) GAT takers are more likely to report multiple regions of ancestral origin; and (3) GAT takers more frequently translate reported ancestral diversity into multiracial self-identification. Our results imply that Americans will select three or more races at higher rates in future demographic data collection, with marked increases in multiple-race reporting among middle-aged adults. We also present experimental evidence that asking questions about ancestry before racial identification moderates some of these GAT-linked reporting differences. Demographers should consider how the meaning of U.S. race data may be changing as more Americans are exposed to information from GATs.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 556
Author(s):  
Alexandros Kalomoiros ◽  
Florian Schwarz

The role of linear order for presupposition projection is a key theoretical question, but the empirical status of (a-)symmetries in projection from various connectives remains controversial. We present experimental evidence that presupposition projection from disjunction is symmetric. 'Bathroom disjunctions', where either disjunct seems able to support a presupposition in the other if its negation entails it, have been argued to be evidence for symmetric projection; but there are alternative theoretical options. Adapting the paradigm of Mandelkern et al. (2020) for projection from conjunction, our experimental data supports the view that we are dealing with genuinely symmetric projection from disjunction. This contrasts with Mandelkern et al.'s findings for asymmetric projection from conjunction, and thus provides evidence for variation in projection (a-)symmetry across connectives, contra accounts proposing general accounts predicting uniform asymmetry effects due to left-to-right processing (e.g. Schlenker 2009).


2021 ◽  
pp. 001041402199749
Author(s):  
Leah R. Rosenzweig ◽  
Yang-Yang Zhou

How do major national events influence attitudes toward non-nationals? Recent research suggests that national sports team wins help foster national pride, weaken ethnic attachments, and build trust among conational out-group members. This paper asks a related question: By heightening nationalism, do these victories also affect attitudes toward foreign out-groups, specifically refugees? We examine this question using the 2019 Africa Cup football match between Kenya and Tanzania, which Kenya narrowly won, coupled with an online survey experiment conducted with a panel of 2,647 respondents recruited through Facebook. We find that winning increases national pride and preferences for resource allocation toward conationals, but it also leads to negative views of refugees’ contribution to the country’s diversity. However, we present experimental evidence that reframing national sports victories as a product of cooperation among diverse players and highlighting shared superordinate identities can offset these views and help foster positive attitudes toward refugees.


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