The role of working memory capacity in evaluative judgments of liking and beauty.

Judgments of liking and beauty appear to be expressions of a common hedonic state, but they differ in how they engage cognitive processes. We hypothesised that beauty judgments place greater demands on limited executive resources than judgments of liking. We tested this hypothesis by asking two groups of participants to judge works of visual art for their beauty or liking while having to remember the location of 1, 3, or 5 dots in a 4 by 4 matrix. We also examined the effect of individual differences in working memory capacity. Our results show that holding information about the location of the dots in working memory delayed judgments of beauty but not of liking. Also, the greater participants' working memory capacity, the faster they completed the working memory task when judging liking, but not when judging beauty. Our study provides evidence that judging beauty draws more on working memory resources than judging liking.

Exosome-transmitted podoplanin promotes tumor-associated macrophage-mediated immune tolerance in glioblastoma.

AIMS: Glioblastoma is the most frequent and aggressive primary brain tumor, characterized by rapid disease course and poor treatment responsiveness. The abundance of immunosuppressive macrophages in glioblastoma challenges the efficacy of novel immunotherapy. METHODS: Bulk RNA-seq and single-cell RNA-seq of glioma patients from public databases were comprehensively analyzed to illustrate macrophage infiltration patterns and molecular characteristics of podoplanin (PDPN). Multiplexed fluorescence immunohistochemistry staining of PDPN, GFAP, CD68, and CD163 were performed in glioma tissue microarray. The impact of PDPN on macrophage immunosuppressive polarization was investigated using a co-culture system. Bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMDMs) and OT-II T cells isolated from BALB/c and OT-II mice respectively were co-cultured to determine T-cell adherence. Pathway alterations were probed through RNA sequencing and western blot analyses. RESULTS: Our findings demonstrated that PDPN is notably correlated with the expression of CD68 and CD163 in glioma tissues. Additionally, macrophages phagocytosing PDPN-containing EVs (EVsPDPN ) from GBM cells presented increased CD163 expression and augmented secretion of immunoregulatory cytokine (IL-6, IL-10, TNF-α, and TGF-ß1). PDPN within EVs was also associated with enhanced phagocytic activity and reduced MHC II expression in macrophages, compromising CD4+ T-cell activation. CONCLUSIONS: This investigation underscores that EVsPDPN derived from glioblastoma cells contributes to M2 macrophage-mediated immunosuppression and is a potential prognostic marker and therapeutic target in glioblastoma.

Cross-cultural empirical aesthetics.

Cross-cultural empirical aesthetics seeks to determine whether the psychological processes underlying aesthetic preference are universal. Here we provide a critical review of the field's origin, development, and current state. Our goal is to evaluate the evidence and separate what is actually known from what is only assumed. We conclude that the evidence shows that people from different cultures base their aesthetic preference on a common set of formal features, including symmetry, complexity, proportion, contour, brightness, and contrast. The reason for this commonality is that aesthetic preference emerges from basic perceptual and valuation processes that are common to all humans, and to many other animals.