LIKE LISTENING TO MUSIC DURING PREGNANCY

Kids' metabolic health can be improved with exercise during pregnancy: here's why

JOSLIN DIABETES CENTER

Research News

 

BOSTON - (March 25, 2021) - A mechanism has been identified that explains how physical exercise in pregnancy confers metabolic health benefits in offspring. According to researchers, the key lies with a protein called SOD3, vitamin D and adequate exercise, with the outcomes possibly forming the first steps to designing rational diet and exercise programs to use during pregnancy and particularly when mothers may also be overweight or obese.

The study, which was led by authors from the Joslin Diabetes Center at the Harvard Medical School and colleagues from Japan, the US, Canada and Denmark, has been published online by Cell Metabolism.

"We've known for a while that risks for obesity and type 2 diabetes can originate in the critical prenatal developmental period," said senior author Laurie Goodyear. "In particular, there is real concern that the increasing levels of obesity seen in women of reproductive age will transmit disease risk to subsequent generations. It's important to understand that if this is not alleviated, rates of diabetes and obesity will only continue to grow in the coming years."

Many previous studies have linked increased maternal body weight and unhealthy diets to poorer metabolic outcomes in offspring, often many years later. Understanding the mechanisms of how maternal exercise can reverse these effects might lead to interventions that prevent these diseases transmitting across generations, say the authors of the study.

"The findings offer an explanation as to why physical exercise during pregnancy may have metabolic benefits for offspring as they get older," said Goodyear. "We show how physical exercise during pregnancy, in combination with adequate vitamin D levels, enhances levels of a placenta-derived protein called SOD3 (superoxide dismutase 3), and that via a number of intermediate steps, this improves glucose tolerance in offspring."

The findings come from a series of investigations with pregnant mice, comparing groups exposed to voluntary wheel running (i.e., exercise) and groups that were sedentary. Using various techniques, the authors carefully investigated the effects of exercise on parameters such as DNA methylation, cell signaling and gene expression, particularly in relation to glucose metabolism.

In short, they found that SOD3 is an exercise-induced placenta-derived protein that activates a specific signaling pathway that controls DNA demethylation in the livers of offspring, which in turn improves a number of aspects of glucose metabolism in offspring.

They also highlight the critical role of vitamin D as a mediator of SOD3 expression, with their data suggesting that maternal diet had to have sufficient vitamin D levels to influence placental levels of SOD3 and hence any improvements in metabolic health in offspring. They note for example, that high dietary levels of the vitamin in the absence of exercise, and indeed the opposite scenario, did not lead to increases in SOD3 - a consequential point if SOD3 is targeted clinically, they suggest.

Although most of the investigation focuses on mice, the authors did also look at SOD3 levels in pregnant women, finding that those who exercised more did have higher levels of serum and placental SOD3 and that they appeared to be highest during the second trimester of pregnancy.

"In terms of clinical application, it looks like the most efficient way to raise levels of the SOD3 protein is still likely to be via physical exercise," said lead author Joji Kusuyama. He added that there may also be clinical interest in using maternal serum levels of SOD3 as a biomarker to assess the benefits of exercise during pregnancy.

"Our data hints that exercise in combination with optimal vitamin D levels might be particularly beneficial during the 2nd trimester of pregnancy," said Kusuyama. "Although we can't be definitive about this with the current findings, we now plan to look in detail at how diet and exercise type and timing might be optimized with maternal serum SOD3 measurements to obtain maximum benefits for offspring."

The authors note some limitations with the study, including generalizability to all races and ethnicities and that there are still certain aspects of the signaling pathway that require further investigation. Nonetheless, they suggest their findings offer important insights into the role of exercise during pregnancy and the likely dynamic metabolic benefits for offspring.

"This report focuses on SOD3 and the metabolic benefits for offspring of maternal exercise, but there may be wider benefits of this protein on other body organs. For example, we are currently investigating the effects of maternal exercise and SOD3 on brain function in the offspring," said Goodyear. "We are also doing more in-depth investigation of maternal exercise effects on placenta because we found there are a plethora of changes in this tissue, and these placental adaptations may also have life-long effects in offspring. It's early days but understanding how exercise and fitness before and during pregnancy work may be the key to better health for subsequent generations."

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Other contributors to the research include Ana Barbara Alves-Wagner, Royce Conlin, Nathan Makarewicz, Brent Albertson, Noah Prince, Shio Kobayashi, Chisayo Kozuka, Magnus Møller, Mette Bjerre, Jens Fuglsang, Emily Miele, Roeland Middelbeek, Yang Xiudong, Yang Xia, Léa Garneau, Jayonta Bhattacharjee, Céline Aguer, Mary Elizabeth Patti, Michael Hirshman, Niels Jessen, Toshihisa Hatta, Per Glud Ovesen, Kristi Adamo, and Eva Nozik-Grayck.

Funding for the study was provided by US National Institutes of Health, the American Diabetes Association, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research as well as many other organizations. Full details are available in the Cell Metabolism report.

About Joslin Diabetes Center

Joslin Diabetes Center is world-renowned for its deep expertise in diabetes treatment and research. Joslin is dedicated to finding a cure for diabetes and ensuring that people with diabetes live long, healthy lives. We develop and disseminate innovative patient therapies and scientific discoveries throughout the world. Joslin is an independent, non-profit institution affiliated with Harvard Medical School, and one of only 16 NIH-designated Diabetes Research Centers in the U.S.

For more information about the Joslin Diabetes Center, visit http://www.joslin.org or follow @joslindiabetes | One Joslin Place, Boston, MA 617-309-2400

For more information about the study, the corresponding authors are Dr Laurie J. Goodyear (laurie.goodyear@joslin.harvard.edu) and Dr Joji Kusuyama (joji.kusuyama.c1@tohoku.ac.jp).

Kusuyama et al. Placental superoxide dismutase 3 mediates benefits of maternal exercise on offspring health. Cell Metabolism 2021. DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2021.03.004

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

 THE POPULARITY OF DATING AT HORROR MOVIES

Screams of 'joy' sound like 'fear' when heard out of context

The first in-depth look at the human ability to decode the range of emotions tied to the acoustic cues of screams

EMORY HEALTH SCIENCES

Research News

 

People are adept at discerning most of the different emotions that underlie screams, such as anger, frustration, pain, surprise or fear, finds a new study by psychologists at Emory University. Screams of happiness, however, are more often interpreted as fear when heard without any additional context, the results show.

PeerJ published the research, the first in-depth look at the human ability to decode the range of emotions tied to the acoustic cues of screams.

"To a large extent, the study participants were quite good at judging the original context of a scream, simply by listening to it through headphones without any visual cues," says Harold Gouzoules, Emory professor of psychology and senior author of the study. "But when participants listened to screams of excited happiness they tended to judge the emotion as fear. That's an interesting, surprising finding."

First author of the study is Jonathan Engelberg, an Emory Ph.D. student of psychology. Emory alum Jay Schwartz, who is now on the faculty of Western Oregon University, is co-author.

The acoustic features that seem to communicate fear are also present in excited, happy screams, the researchers note. "In fact, people pay good money to ride roller coasters, where their screams no doubt reflect a blend of those two emotions," Gouzoules says.

He adds that the bias towards interpreting both of these categories as fear likely has deep, evolutionary roots.

"The first animal screams were probably in response to an attack by a predator," he says. "In some cases, a sudden, loud high-pitched sound might startle a predator and allow the prey to escape. It's an essential, core response. So mistaking a happy scream for a fearful one could be an ancestral carryover bias. If it's a close call, you're going to err on the side of fear."

The findings may even provide a clue to the age-old question of why young children often scream while playing.

"Nobody has really studied why young children tend to scream frequently, even when they are happily playing, but every parent knows that they do," Gouzoules says. "It's a fascinating phenomenon."

While screams can convey strong emotions, they are not ideal as individual identifiers, since they lack the more distinctive and consistent acoustic parameters of an individual's speaking voice.

"It's just speculative, but it may be that when children scream with excitement as they play, it serves the evolutionary role of familiarizing a parent to the unique sound of their screams," Gouzoules says. "The more you hear your child scream in a safe, happy context, the better able you are to identify a scream as belonging to your child, so you will know to respond when you hear it."

Gouzoules first began researching the screams of non-human primates, decades ago. Most animals scream only in response to a predator, although some monkeys and apes also use screams to recruit support when they are in a fight with other group members. "Their kin and friends will come to help, even if some distance away, when they can recognize the vocalizer," he says.

In more recent years, Gouzoules has turned to researching human screams, which occur in a much broader context than those of animals. His lab has collected screams from Hollywood movies, TV shows and YouTube videos. They include classic performances by "scream queens" like Jaime Lee Curtis, along with the screams of non-actors reacting to actual events, such as a woman shrieking in fear as aftershocks from a meteor that exploded over Russia shake a building, or a little girl's squeal of delight as she opens a Christmas present.

In previous work, the lab has quantified tone, pitch and frequency for screams from a range of emotions: Anger, frustration, pain, surprise, fear and happiness.

For the current paper, the researchers wanted to test the ability of listeners to decode the emotion underlying a scream, based solely on its sound. A total of 182 participants listened through headphones to 30 screams from movies that were associated with one of the six emotions. All of the screams were presented six times, although never in sequence. After hearing a scream, the listeners rated how likely it was associated with each of six of the emotions, on a scale of one to five.

The results showed that the participants most often matched a scream to its correct emotional context, except in the case of screams of happiness, which participants more often rated highly for fear.

"Our work intertwines language and non-verbal communication in a way that hasn't been done in the past," Gouzoules says.

Some aspects of non-verbal vocal communication are thought to be precursors for language. The researchers hypothesize that it may be that the cognitive underpinnings for language also built human capacity in the non-verbal domain. "It's probably language that gives us this ability to take a non-verbal vocalization and discern a wide range of meanings, depending on the acoustic cues," Gouzoules says.

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Yoga only goes so far: How overhauling

patient records can curb physician burnout

Wellness programs for health care workers emphasize self-care; they're overlooking a huge contributor to burnout: Patient records

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

Research News

IMAGE: PHYSICIAN BURNOUT AFFECTS PATIENTS, TOO. STRESSED DOCTORS ARE LESS COMPASSIONATE AND MORE LIKELY TO MAKE MISTAKES. CLINICIANS WHO LEAVE THE FIELD OR CUT BACK HOURS REDUCE PATIENT ACCESS TO CARE,... view more 

CREDIT: SHANNON ALEXANDER/UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

Judges don't do court stenography. CEOs don't take minutes at meetings. So why do we expect doctors and other health care providers to spend hours recording notes -- something experts know contributes to burnout?

"Having them do so much clerical work doesn't make sense," said Lisa Merlo, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychiatry and director of wellness programs at the University of Florida College of Medicine. "In order to improve the health care experience for everyone, we need to help them focus more on the actual practice of medicine."

Physician burnout affects patients, too. Stressed doctors are less compassionate and more likely to make mistakes. Clinicians who leave the field or cut back hours reduce patient access to care, and replacing doctors in the midst of a physician shortage drives up costs.

"We can't ignore burnout and expect doctors to just keep picking up the slack," Merlo said.

Electronic health records -- or EHRs -- have enabled better, faster and more accurate communication among health care providers. But the time required to populate them can mean less interaction with patients and more time after hours typing notes, which can be more driven by insurance requirements than usefulness in patient care.

To find solutions, Merlo teamed up with Oliver Nguyen, a research coordinator and IT specialist in the College of Medicine, to evaluate 35 studies of records-related burnout, looking for common threads. Their study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, is part of a special issue on physician burnout.

"The longer clinicians spend on records, especially after hours or on weekends, the more it's associated with burnout," Nguyen said.

As the pandemic stretches health care workers ever thinner, "we're beyond the straw that broke the camel's back," Merlo said. "The system has survived for so long because physicians step up and get the work done out of a sense of altruism and dedication to their patients. But there's only so long you can sustain that."

Physician wellness initiatives have increased during the pandemic, often focusing exclusively on self care. But "adding more yoga classes is not going to address a clinician working on electronic health records at home at 11 p.m.," Merlo said.

Streamlining record-keeping could help. So when Nguyen approached Merlo about optimizing electronic records, she was eager to collaborate. With colleagues at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the U.S. Navy, Moffitt Cancer Center, the University of South Florida and the University of Central Florida, they uncovered several potential solutions that could help physicians. (Another study looked at nurse burnout; future research will include other health care providers.)

Their recommendations:

Share the load

Overflowing inboxes contribute to burnout. As the pandemic shifts some office visits to videoconference, email and phone communication, "inboxes are blowing up," Nguyen said. A shared inbox that allows office staff to triage messages that don't require a doctor's input, such as insurance questions, can help.

Revisit policy

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services launched the Patients over Paperwork initiative in part to reduce the documentation requirements. If it shows promising results for reducing records burden, Nguyen and Merlo say, it could serve as a model for private insurers to emulate.

Create power users

Even when they're familiar with an EHR interface, doctors might not know about time-saving features like templates and bookmarks. An optimization team that offers proactive support can streamline time spent in the system.

Collaborate on design

"Usability continues to be a struggle for physicians," Nguyen said. More input from users can help when it comes to designing EHRs, as well as selecting and implementing them.

"The good news is, a lot of the issues can be fixed," Merlo said. "If we invest in these resources, we can make this better for patients, for health care providers, for everybody."

Teachers can use popular media to address anti-Asian bias, KU research shows

Critical race media literacy effective approach, schools should use to address difficult topics, scholars argue

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS

Research News

 

LAWRENCE -- Recent incidents of racial discrimination and violence against Asians and Asian-Americans in the United States have prompted critical discussions about how to talk about such biases with younger age groups. New research from the University of Kansas shows using critical race media literacy, or examining how race and gender are addressed in popular culture, can be an effective way to discuss those topics and engage students.

KU researchers published a study in which they observed an American teacher using critical race media literacy to discuss racism and sexism in superhero movies in English as a foreign language classes in a South Korean high school. They argued that successful implementation can provide a model for discussing social topics in K-12 classrooms in countries like the United States.

Hyesun Cho"I think now, more than ever, it's important for us educators to teach our students how to contest prejudice and discrimination against certain racial groups," said Hyesun Cho, associate professor of curriculum & teaching in KU's School of Education & Human Sciences.

The recent mass shooting of several Asian-American women in Atlanta made headlines, but the topic can be difficult to discuss in schools.

"Teachers often are hesitant to discuss race and gender in the classroom because they are understandably concerned about sounding too political," said Peter Johnson, doctoral candidate in curriculum & teaching and study co-author. "I think that is one roadblock that we need to address, and this approach can help do that."

The study was published in the International Journal of Multicultural Education and presented at the Second Language Research Forum 2020 Conference hosted by Vanderbilt University.

Cho has led a study abroad program with KU students since 2015, traveling to South Korea to gain experience working in high schools while teaching English. The researchers observed classes where students explored issues of racism or sexism in popular culture on their own. Several groups of students shared examples in popular movies like "Black Panther" and "Dr. Strange" to appeal to their classmates. Students made presentations in English about how the wildly popular films addressed race both in positive ways, such as empowering African characters in "Black Panther," and in more negative ways, including a white actor portraying an Asian character in the 2016 film "Doctor Strange." The students were highly effective at discussing critical race theory and other complex topics, the authors wrote, and using media that students find compelling is a key way to give students a safe, comfortable way to discuss difficult topics.

"Do not underestimate our students' intelligence and higher thinking skills. That's the argument we're making here, even if they are working in a second or third language," Cho said. "Discussing critical race media literacy worked very well in Korean classrooms, despite misconceptions that often exist about these students' English proficiency and cultural background. If the teacher gets to know students and their interests and creates a safe space for them to express their thoughts about social issues, this approach can work in other teaching contexts."

Not only can using topics relevant to students' interests help encourage their participation, but it can help teachers connect with students. Educators are more effective when they get to know their students, their communities, families, backgrounds and experiences, Cho and Johnson wrote. The teacher in the study was born in Thailand, raised in the United States and speaks English as a first language. However, he faced discrimination when applying for jobs at South Korean schools, as it was assumed he was not a "true, American English speaker" because he was not white. Sharing such experiences can help expand discussions of power structures beyond media representations.

South Korea, like the United States, has an educational culture highly focused on testing and assessment. A common argument is that topics like racism and sexism can't or shouldn't be covered in school because they take time away from focusing on testing areas. However, the students displayed high levels of critical thinking, use of language, technological savvy and other educational skills in their presentations. That success suggests adaptability to other settings and levels of curriculum, Cho and Johnson wrote.

Cho said she hoped to return to South Korea to study other implementations of critical race media literacy in classrooms to gauge their effectiveness and to form new recommendations for teachers to address the topics in their own classrooms. Both Cho and Johnson also encourage prospective educators they are currently teaching to consider such methods to engage their future students and empower them to take ownership of their education.

"We try to frame it for our future teachers so that they understand they are able to have a classroom where students feel comfortable to ask the questions they have on their minds," Johnson said. "It can be tough to strike a good balance, but this shows they can use media such as films students are interested in to get them to think about deeper issues."

While it can be difficult to discuss to racism, sexism or the recent violence against Asians and Asian-Americans in a classroom setting, the use of critical race media literacy works, the researchers said.

"This is a new imperative for survival in the current, racially contested world. Especially given the anti-Asian-American violence we have seen in the U.S., it is everyone's responsibility to address it," Cho said. "Students want to be heard, and this study shows it's not an impossible task to discuss these social issues and can be done in a way that uses content relevant and readily accessible to students throughout K-12 education."

THE SHOCKING TRUTH!

Degrees of happiness? Formal education does not lead to greater job satisfaction, study shows

UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

Research News

 

Education is considered one of the most critical personal capital investments. But formal educational attainment doesn't necessarily pay off in job satisfaction, according to new research from the University of Notre Dame.

In fact, there is almost no relationship between the two, according to "Does Educational Attainment Promote Job Satisfaction? The Bittersweet Trade-offs Between Job Resources, Demands and Stress," forthcoming in the Journal of Applied Psychology from Brittany Solomon (Hall), assistant professor of management, and Dean Shepherd, the Ray and Milann Siegfried Professor of Entrepreneurship, both at Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business, along with Boris Nikolaev from Baylor University.

"Our study shows people who have invested in formal education do not tend to be more satisfied in their jobs," Solomon said. "We found that better-educated individuals do enjoy greater job-related resources including income, job autonomy and variety. But they also endure longer work hours and increased job pressure, intensity and urgency. On average, these demands are associated with increased stress and decreased job satisfaction, largely offsetting the positive gains associated with greater resources."

In supplemental analyses, the team found that women were more likely to experience an increased negative association between education and job satisfaction, and self-employed individuals experienced a reduced negative association.

"Women still face workplace adversity that can undermine the positive returns on their educational investment," Solomon said. "This dynamic is particularly important given the reversal of the gender gap in education, with more women completing higher education than men. We explored the notion that the education-job satisfaction link is negative and stronger for women and discovered that, compared to their highly educated male counterparts, highly educated women experience more stress at work and lower job satisfaction."

Relative to traditional occupations, self-employment offers considerable flexibility to organize one's work schedule, choose the work content and decide how to respond to job demands.

"We found that, compared to their wage-employed counterparts, those in self-employment seem to be more insulated from the adverse effects of education on job stress and satisfaction," Solomon said. "We believe illuminating this boundary condition is notable for the educated and organizations that value and want to retain their educated employees."

The researchers do not suggest avoiding higher education in an effort to achieve higher job satisfaction, but recommend a realistic calculation of trade-offs between "good" and "bad" working conditions and the associated stress and job satisfaction.

"Balancing those conditions that lead to both stress and job satisfaction may help workers recalibrate their values and ultimately make decisions that suit their priorities," Solomon said. "Leaders may also consider better ways to manage the greater demands encountered by their highly educated employees so that exploiting an organization's greatest human capital does not backfire. For example, by removing incentives for employees to take on excessive work hours, organizations can avoid inadvertently pressuring employees to incur stress that undermines job satisfaction.

"Many people pursue higher education to get a better job on paper, not realizing that this 'better job' isn't actually better due to the unanticipated effects of demands and stress over time," Solomon said. "It's good for people to be realistic about the career paths they pursue and what they ultimately value."

Remote monitoring could boost the use of nature-based solutions to safeguard against natural hazards

UNIVERSITY OF SURREY

Research News

 

Remote monitoring using airborne devices such as drones or satellites could revolutionise the effectiveness of nature-based solutions (NBS) that protect communities from devastating natural hazards such as floods, storms and landslides, say climate change experts from the University of Surrey.

Grey structural measures (a collective term for engineering projects that use concrete and steel) like floodgates, dams, dikes and sea walls are still the most common methods to guard against natural hazards. However, these 'grey measures' are expensive and lack the long-term flexibility and sustainability needed to help communities manage their growing population and address the planet's ongoing struggle against urbanisation and climate change. While NBS are cost-effective, their usability and reproducibility are often hindered by the lack of standard monitoring methods, tools and indicators.

In a comprehensive study published in the Earth-Science Reviews journal, researchers from Surrey's Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE) collaborated with experts from across Europe* to analyse monitoring methods that measure the effectiveness of NBS - such as wetlands, forest restoration projects and installation of green walls.

In the paper, the team found that while there is a need for combining ground and remote monitoring methods for holistic assessment, the advances in remote monitoring techniques present a significant source of hope for routinely, continually and accurately measuring the effectiveness of NBS and quelling skepticism around choosing NBS over grey-engineered options. Remote monitoring offers the ability to cover large geographical areas, and high-resolution imagery could change the way farmers, scientists, hazard managers and other decision-makers view NBS usage and applicability.

However, the study also warns that the lack of globally accepted standards to gauge an NBS success hinders their progress and use and needs to be urgently addressed.

Professor Prashant Kumar, Associate Dean (International) and the Director of the GCARE at the University of Surrey, said: "Unfortunately we do expect a significant uptick in natural hazards, thanks to climate change. Therefore, our decisions on how we protect ourselves are crucial, and nature-based solutions have the advantages of being flexible and not adding to the damage caused to our environment.

"I hope that this review begins an urgent discussion on how we can move forward as a scientific community and start to develop an accepted framework for measuring the effectiveness of nature-based solutions."

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Note to editors

Reference

Kumar, P., Debele, S. E., Sahani, J., Rawat, N., Marti-Cardona, B., Alfieri, S. M.,Basu, B., Basu, A. S., Bowyer, P., Charizopoulos, N., Jaakko, J., Loupis, M., Menenti, M., Mickovski, S. B., Pfeiffer, J., Pilla, F., Pröll, J., Pulvirenti, B., Rutzinger, M., Sannigrah, S., Spyrou, C., Tuomenvirta, H., Vojinovic, Z., Zieher, T., 2021. An overview of monitoring methods for assessing the performance of nature-based solutions against natural hazards. Earth-Science Reviews, 103603. Online Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2021.103603

*The European partners of this study are part of the OPERANDUM (OPEn-air laboRAtories for Nature baseD solUtions to Manage hydro-meteo risks) project. The project is funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant number 776848.

This work builds upon the prior studies of the team on hydrometeorological risk assessment methods, presenting revised concepts of NBS and operationalisation of NBS through Open-Air Laboratories.

Infants' language skills more advanced than first words suggest

Babies can recognize combinations of words even before they have uttered their first word, a study suggests, challenging ideas of how children learn language

UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH

Research News 

Babies can recognise combinations of words even before they have uttered their first word, a study suggests, challenging ideas of how children learn language.

Assessments in 11-12 month-olds show that infants at the cusp of talking are already processing multiword phrases such as 'clap your hands'.

Researchers say the study is the first to provide evidence that young children can pick up and understand multiword sequences before they can talk or begin producing such combinations themselves.

The findings suggest that babies learn individual words and more complex phrases at the same time, which challenges the perspective that they progress from single words to phrases and sentences, experts say.

It may also explain why adults who learn a new language in later life by focusing on individual words often do not achieve native-like proficiency.

Linguists at the University of Edinburgh assessed 36 infants' language learning behaviour in a series of attention tests using recorded adult speech.

They looked at how the babies responded to multiword combinations of three-word sequences used in parent-child conversations.

The researchers compared the infants' responses using a testing method called central fixation, which measures infants' looking behaviour in response to sounds.

They assessed if the babies could distinguish more frequently used three-word sequences such as 'clap your hands' from similar but less common phrases such as 'take your hands'.

On average, fixation times were longer for the frequently used phrases. This pattern was found in 23 of the 36 infants.

Researchers say this suggests babies who are still learning their first words are simultaneously learning word combinations.

This development happens months before parents hear their children's first attempts at sequences of words, experts say.

Dr Barbora Skarabela, of the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Languages Sciences, said: "Previous research has shown that young infants recognise many common words. But this is the first study that shows that infants extract and store more than just single words from everyday speech. This suggests that when children learn language, they build on linguistic units of varying sizes, including multiword sequences, and not just single words as we often assume. This may explain why adults learning a second language, who tend to rely on individual words, often fall short of reaching native-like proficiency in the way they string words together into phrases and sentences."

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The study is published in Cognition - https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1cYnj2Hx2luLz (doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104612).

Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem contributed to the study.

Doctors experiencing domestic abuse feel socially and professionally isolated

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON

Research News

 

Female doctors who suffer domestic abuse can feel unable to get help due to perceptions that it "should not happen to a doctor" and a judgemental culture in medical settings, a new study suggests.

Victim-survivors who work as doctors often do not feel able to talk about abuse confidentially and fear the consequences of reporting it.

Researchers from the University of Southampton interviewed twenty-one female doctors who had previously left an abusive relationship about their experience of domestic abuse, barriers they faced when seeking help, and the impact on their work. The findings have been published in the British Journal of General Practice.

Dr Emily Donovan, who led the study from the University of Southampton's Primary Care Research Centre said: "Domestic abuse is a huge problem for women from all walks of life but I was surprised to hear through conversations how prevalent it seemed to be in the medical profession. Despite this, very little has been written about doctors who are victims, all the research seems to focus on how doctors help other victims of domestic abuse. So I wanted to find out more about how it affected these women at work and their experiences of seeking support."

1. "It shouldn't happen to a doctor"

Several participants expressed embarrassment and felt that, as doctors, they "should have known better" and that they are "supposed to be intelligent, strong women who are not vulnerable." This could also lead them to question how they would be able to help their patients whilst feeling as though they could not look after themselves.

Despite the perceptions that it should not happen to them, many of the victim-survivors said that the nature of their job actually made them more vulnerable to persistent domestic abuse. Because they work hard every day to resolve problems for others, it was natural for this determination to 'keep going' to continue in their personal lives. For some participants, routinely dealing with difficult and demanding colleagues normalised the poor treatment that they experienced at home, causing them to persist with relationships even after they had become abusive.

2. Hard to disclose problems or seek help from fellow health professionals.

The study identified a number of barriers to disclosing and seeking help, the main concerns being confidentiality, for example having to speak to health professionals who they know personally or professionally.

Many participants said that not fitting the stereotype of a female suffering domestic abuse caused disbelief from health professionals from whom they sought help as a patient. Some victim-survivors felt that health or social care professionals were quick to shut the conversations down, whilst some were threatened with being reported to the General Medical Council (GMC).

Problems in disclosure were particularly prominent when the abusive partner was also a health professional, which often deterred the victim-survivor from reporting the abuse through fear that they would not be believed due to their partner's status.

3. A "judgemental" medical culture

A culture of presenteeism in medical settings and perception that weakness is not tolerated also made it difficult to get the time off needed to access domestic abuse services during working hours.

When victim-survivors were able to speak to health professionals who would listen and validate that they were experiencing domestic abuse, it made a huge difference. Peer support groups were also extremely valuable in helping them understand that they were not alone and inspiring them to take action.

Speaking about how the medical profession can support its workers, Dr Donovan said, "A designated confidential service for doctor victim-survivors would give them access to support without the risk of meeting their patients and colleagues.

"The medical profession also needs to change its culture so that its workers feel that they can talk to each other more and that they are being looked after as well as their patients."

 

Cardiorespiratory fitness improves grades at school

By confirming the link between children's cardiorespiratory fitness and their school results, researchers at the UNIGE underline the importance of physical education classes at school.

UNIVERSITÉ DE GENÈVE

Research News

 

Recent studies indicate a link between children's cardiorespiratory fitness and their school performance: the more athletic they are, the better their marks in the main subjects - French and mathematics. Similarly, cardiorespiratory fitness is known to benefit cognitive abilities, such as memory and attention. But what is the real influence of such fitness on school results? To answer this question, researchers at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland tested pupils from eight Geneva schools. Their results, published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sport & Exercise, show that there is an indirect link with cardiorespiratory fitness influencing cognitive abilities, which in turn, influence school results.

Charles Hillman, a professor at Northeastern University in Boston and co-author of this study, has suggested in previous research that there is a link between children's cardiorespiratory fitness and their academic performance, as well as a beneficial effect of cardiorespiratory fitness on executive functions. "There are three main executive functions", explains Marc Yangüez, a researcher at the UNIGE's Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences (FPSE) and first author of the study. "The first is inhibition, i.e., our ability to inhibit intrusive or irrelevant behaviour or thoughts. The second is cognitive flexibility, which often called multitasking, and refers to our ability to flexibility move between tasks or responses based on task demands. Finally, the third is working memory, which is our ability to maintain information in our minds and manipulate it."

However, the link between fitness and academic skills does not seem obvious at first sight. This is why researchers at the UNIGE wanted to analyze it and observe how one influences the other and whether a specific cognitive process plays a predominant role.

Testing the physical and cognitive abilities of Geneva students

The Geneva investigators teamed up with eight schools in the canton of Geneva to conduct cognitive and physical tests on 193 pupils aged 8 to 12. First of all, children took a physical test known as the "shuttle run test": the children had to run back and forth between two lines 20 meters apart at an increasingly fast pace. "Combined with height, weight, age and sex, this test allows us to assess the child's cardiovascular fitness", says Marc Yangüez. "Following this, we used nine tasks that allow us to assess children's abilities in the three main executive functions - inhibition, cognitive flexibility and working memory - and we measured different indicators such as the precision and speed of their responses", explains Julien Chanal, researcher at the FPSE of the UNIGE. For example, one of the tests of inhibition presents students with images of fish swimming. The central fish can either swim in the same direction as the others or in the opposite direction. The students have to indicate as quickly and accurately as possible the direction in which the central fish is swimming when they are only shown the picture for 200 milliseconds. To measure cognitive flexibility, the students took three tests as well, one of the tests asked the students to connect in ascending order numbers and letters (1-A-2-B-3-C, etc.). In one of the working memory tests, the students had to memorize a sequence of numbers, such as 2 6 4 9 7, and then repeat them in the reverse order. In addition, at the end of the year, the teachers, with the parents' consent, transmitted the students' marks for the three terms of the year in mathematics, French 1 (comprehension and expression of text) and French 2 (grammar, spelling and vocabulary).

An indirect link between cardiorespiratory fitness and school results

By combining the data obtained, the psychologists found that there was a link between better cardiorespiratory fitness and higher marks in mathematics and French 2. "French 1 is probably less directly concerned, because the evaluation of the text and the writing depend more on subjective factors, which is less the case for mathematics or grammar, for which there is little subjectivity in the right or wrong answers", explains Marc Yangüez. In addition to the existence of a link between cardiorespiratory fitness and school results, the data obtained also confirm a link between cardiorespiratory fitness and executive functions. But does good cardiorespiratory fitness affect academic performance directly or indirectly through executive functions?

"By decomposing these effects via a statistical mediation model, we established that the link between cardiorespiratory fitness and academic performance was indirect. In fact, physical fitness is related to better executive functions, and it is indeed executive functions that influences school performance, more specifically cognitive flexibility", emphasizes Julien Chanal.

Important results for the planning of physical education in schools

The results of this study are important for the organization of school planning. "By demonstrating the link between physical capacities, such as cardiorespiratory capacity, cognitive abilities and grades, it underlines the importance of not reducing physical activity (and in particular physical education hours) in favour of other subjects, as this could ultimately have a negative impact on the development of the child as a whole", says Marc Yangüez. This study also challenges the idea of forcing children to study more and spend more time at their desks in order to succeed at school, depriving them of physical exercise. Finally, and all the more so in times of a pandemic, the Geneva psychologists stress the importance of not depriving children of movement, which would be detrimental to both their physical health and their cognitive health. "We would now like to carry out an intervention study into schools in different regions of Switzerland, in order to demonstrate on a large scale that when children's weekly physical activity increases, it has a positive impact on the development of executive functions, leading to a significant improvement in school results", concludes Julien Chanal.

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Algorithm-based music recommendations: Low accuracy for lovers of non-mainstream music

GRAZ UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

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IMAGE: A STUDY PUBLISHED IN THE OPEN-ACCESS JOURNAL 'EPJ DATA SCIENCE' SUGGESTS THAT MUSIC RECOMMENDATIONS FOR HIGH-ENERGY MUSIC SUCH AS HARD ROCK AND HIP-HOP MAY BE LESS ACCURATE THAN THOSE FOR... view more 

CREDIT: MOCKUP: © TU GRAZ; PHOTO: © LUNGHAMMER - TU GRAZ

A team of researchers from Graz University of Technology, Know-Center GmbH, Johannes Kepler University Linz, University of Innsbruck, Austria and University of Utrecht, the Netherlands, compared how accurate algorithm-generated music recommendations were for mainstream and non-mainstream music listeners. They used a dataset containing the listening histories of 4,148 users of the music streaming platform Last.fm who either listened to mostly non-mainstream music or mostly mainstream music (2,074 users in each group). Based on the artists music users' listened to most frequently, the authors used a computational model to predict how likely music users were to like the music recommended to them by four common music recommendation algorithms. They found that listeners of mainstream music appeared to receive more accurate music recommendations than listeners of non-mainstream music.

Algorithm to classify music listeners

The authors then used an algorithm to categorise the non-mainstream music listeners in their sample based on the features of the music they most frequently listened to. These groups were: listeners of music genres containing only acoustic instruments such as folk, listeners of high-energy music such as hard rock and hip-hop, listeners of music with acoustic instruments and no vocals such as ambient, and listeners of high-energy music with no vocals such as electronica. The authors compared the listening histories of each group and identified which users were the most likely to listen to music outside of their preferred genres and the diversity of music genres listened to within each group.

Those who mostly listened to music such as ambient were found to be most likely to also listen to music preferred by hard rock, folk or electronica listeners. Those who mostly listened to high-energy music were least likely to also listen to music preferred by folk, electronica or ambient listeners, but they listened to the widest variety of genres, for example hard rock, punk, singer/songwriter and hip-hop,

The authors then used users' listening histories and a computational model to predict how likely the different groups of non-mainstream music listeners were to like the music recommendations generated by the four common music recommendation algorithms. They found that those who listened to mostly high-energy music appeared to receive the least accurate music recommendations and those who mostly listened to music such as ambient appeared to receive the most accurate recommendations.

Biased music recommendation algorithms

Elisabeth Lex, the corresponding author, said: "As increasing amounts of music have become available via music streaming services, music recommendation systems have become essential to helping users search, sort and filter extensive music collections. Our findings suggest that many state-of-the-art music recommendation techniques may not provide quality recommendations for non-mainstream music listeners. This could be because music recommendation algorithms are biased towards more popular music, resulting in non-mainstream music being less likely to be recommended by algorithms."

"Further," added Elisabeth Lex, "our results indicate that the music preferences of those who mostly listen to music such as ambient can be more easily predicted by music recommendation algorithms than the preferences of those who listen to music such as hard rock and hip-hop. This means that they may receive better music recommendations.

The authors suggest that their findings could inform the creation of music recommendation systems that provide more accurate recommendations to non-mainstream music listeners. However, they caution that as their analyses are based on a sample of Last.fm users their findings may not be representative of all Last.fm users or users of other music streaming platforms.

This research area is anchored in the Field of Expertise "Information, Communication & Computing", one of five strategic foci of TU Graz.