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1. Inferred Attractiveness: A generalized mechanism for sexual selection that can maintain variation in traits and preferences over time

   https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002269  

   DuVal, Emily H.; Fitzpatrick, Courtney L.; Hobson, Elizabeth A.; Servedio, Maria R. (October 2023, PLOS Biology)

   Patricelli, Gail L. (Ed.)

   Sexual selection by mate choice is a powerful force that can lead to evolutionary change, and models of why females choose particular mates are central to understanding its effects. Predominant mate choice theories assume preferences are determined solely by genetic inheritance, an assumption still lacking widespread support. Moreover, preferences often vary among individuals or populations, fail to correspond with conspicuous male traits, or change with context, patterns not predicted by dominant models. Here, we propose a new model that explains this mate choice complexity with one general hypothesized mechanism, “Inferred Attractiveness.” In this model, females acquire mating preferences by observing others’ choices and use context-dependent information to infer which traits are attractive. They learn to prefer the feature of a chosen male that most distinguishes him from other available males. Over generations, this process produces repeated population-level switches in preference and maintains male trait variation. When viability selection is strong, Inferred Attractiveness produces population-wide adaptive preferences superficially resembling “good genes.” However, it results in widespread preference variation or nonadaptive preferences under other predictable circumstances. By casting the female brain as the central selective agent, Inferred Attractiveness captures novel and dynamic aspects of sexual selection and reconciles inconsistencies between mate choice theory and observed behavior. 

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2. Lexico-syntactic constraints influence verbal working memory in sentence-like lists

   https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-023-01496-2  

   Schwering, Steven C.; Jacobs, Cassandra L.; Montemayor, Janelle; MacDonald, Maryellen C. (December 2023, Memory & Cognition)

   We test predictions from the language emergent perspective on verbal working memory that lexico-syntactic constraints should support both item and order memory. In natural language, long-term knowledge of lexico-syntactic patterns involving part of speech, verb biases, and noun animacy support language comprehension and production. In three experiments, participants were presented with randomly generated dative-like sentences or lists in which part of speech, verb biases, and animacy of a single word were manipulated. Participants were more likely to recall words in the correct position when presented with a verb over a noun in the verb position, a good dative verb over an intransitive verb in the verb position, and an animate noun over an inanimate noun in the subject noun position. These results demonstrate that interactions between words and their context in the form of lexico-syntactic constraints influence verbal working memory. 

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3. Understanding preferences in infancy

   https://doi.org/10.1002/wcs.1643  

   Choi, Youjung; Luo, Yuyan (January 2023, WIREs Cognitive Science)

   Abstract A preference is defined as a dispositional state that helps explain why a person chooses one option over another. Preference understanding is a significant part of interpreting and predicting others' behavior, which can also help to guide social encounters, for instance, to initiate interactions and even form relationships based on shared preferences. Cognitive developmental research in the past several decades has revealed that infants have relatively sophisticated understandings about others' preferences, as part of investigations into how young children make sense of others' behavior in terms of mental states such as intentions, dispositions including preferences, and epistemic states. In recent years, research on early psychological knowledge expands to including infant understanding of social situations. As such, infants are also found to use their preference understandings in their social life. They treat favorably others who share their own preferences, and they prefer prosocial and similar others (e.g., those who speak their language). In reviewing these results, we point out future directions for research and conclude with further suggestions and recommendations. This article is categorized under:Cognitive Biology > Cognitive DevelopmentPsychology > Development and Aging 

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4. Pesticide risk during commercial apple pollination is greater for honeybees than other managed and wild bees

   https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.14661  

   Mueller, Tobias_G; Baert, Nicolas; Muñiz, Paige_A; Sossa, David_E; Danforth, Bryan_N; McArt, Scott_H (April 2024, Journal of Applied Ecology)

   Abstract Most pesticide research has focussed on risk to managed honeybees, but other managed and wild bees are also exposed to pesticides. Critically, we know little about the magnitude and sources of risk to honeybees compared with other bees during crop pollination.To compare pesticide exposure and risk across wild and managed bees, we sampled the main bee groups present during bloom in 20 apple orchards, including managed honeybees (Apis mellifera), managed bumblebee workers (Bombus impatiens), wild mining bees (Andrenaspp. andAndrena [Melandrena]spp.), bumblebee foundress queens (Bombus impatiens) and eastern carpenter bees (Xylocopa virginica). We screened all bees for 92 pesticides and computed a Risk Quotient using available toxicity data (honeybee LD₅₀s), adjusting for differences in toxicity known to scale with body mass. To gain insight into exposure origin, we compared residues in bees to those in focal orchard apple and dandelion flowers.Nearly all bee samples contained pesticides (95%), with the average contamination level ranging from 7.1 ± 2.8 parts per billion (ppb) inB. impatiensworkers to 388.4 ± 146.2 ppb inAndrena. Exposure profiles were similar for all bees exceptA. mellifera, whose unique exposure profile included high levels of the neonicotinoid insecticide thiamethoxam.All bee groups except wildB. impatiensqueens had at least one sample exceeding a US Environmental Protection Agency or European Food Safety Authority exposure level of concern.Apis melliferaexperienced significantly greater risk than other bee groups, with 63% and 81% of samples exceeding an acute or chronic exposure level of concern, respectively. Risk to honeybees was driven primarily by high thiamethoxam levels not found in focal orchard flowers and likely originating outside the orchard.Synthesis and applications: We find that pesticide exposure and risk differ between honeybees and other managed and wild bees during apple pollination. Furthermore, pesticide exposure is a landscape‐scale phenomenon and therefore measures to reduce exposure must consider the surroundings beyond focal farms. Limiting orchard sprays, while reducing on‐farm exposures, will not protect far‐foraging bees from off‐farm exposures such as thiamethoxam, which we hypothesize is coming from nearby seed‐treated corn fields planted during apple bloom. 

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5. Every Glass Ceiling Has a Floor (of Interaction): Studying Body Position as an Index of Social Position in Kindergarten Classrooms.

   Silvis, D.; Clarke-Midura, J.; Shumway, J.; and Lee, V.R. (January 2022, International Conference of the Learning Sciences)

   Classroom environments have been hot spots for studies of conversational “floor maintenance,” or the ways in which people establish interactional rights and obligations through turn-taking or topical cohesion. We know less about how the physical floor of interaction is negotiated when activities literally take place on the floor, as in Kindergarten classrooms. In floor-based learning activities, body movements, body positions, and proximity are key modalities for establishing rights and obligations for participating in tasks. This paper analyzes video of Kindergarteners engaged in a floor-based learning activity, where children moved around and positioned themselves (and others) to participate. We found that while children often leaned in to the task-space, there were occasions where they sat back, but were nonetheless productive. Referring to these latter forms of participation as “zones of productive exclusion,” we analyze how body positioning indexed children’s rights and obligations in-task. We discuss implications for analyses of the powered relations between differently-positioned bodies. 

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