Familiarity Determines Whether Accent Affects Attitudes and Behaviors of the Listener.

Previous research found that accents cause the listener to exhibit prejudice toward the speaker. The present study tested whether the familiarity of the listener and speaker moderated this effect. Study 1 tested this question in a simulated recruit scenario and found that participants were less likely to recruit candidates with an accent, but this effect existed only when the candidate was a stranger to the interviewer, not when the candidate was an acquaintance. Study 2 retested this question in a scenario of talking one-on-one and also found that the effect of accent existed only when they were strangers, not when they were acquaintances. Both studies suggested that the effect of accent on the attitude and behavior of the listener vanished when the speaker and listener were familiar with each other. This work offers insights for understanding the effect of accent on social interaction from the perspective of the familiarity of the speaker and listener and reveals the moderated role of familiarity in the dynamic of the effect of accent.

Highly Soluble and Stable, High Release Rate Nanocellulose Codrug Delivery System of Curcumin and AuNPs for Dual Chemo-Photothermal Therapy.

As a natural antitumor drug, curcumin (CUR) has received increasing attention from researchers and patients due to its various medicinal properties. However, currently CUR is still restricted due to its low and stand-alone therapeutic effects that seriously limit its clinical application. Here, by using cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) as a nanocarrier to load CUR and AuNPs simultaneously, we developed a hybrid nanoparticle as a codrug delivery system to enhance the low and stand-alone therapeutic effects of CUR. Aided with the encapsulation of ß-cyclodextrin (ßCD), both the solubility and the stability of CUR are greatly enhanced (solubility increased from 0.89 to 131.7 µg/mL). Owing to the unique rod-like morphology of CNCs, the system exhibits an outstanding loading capacity of 31.4 µg/mg. Under the heat effects of coloaded AuNPs, the system demonstrates a high release rate of 77.63%. Finally, with CNC as a bridge nanocarrier, all aforementioned functions were integrated into one hybrid nanoparticle. The all-in-one integration ensures CUR to have enhanced therapeutic effects and enables the delivery system to exhibit combined chemo-photothermal therapy outcomes. This work presents a significant step toward CUR's clinical application and provides a new strategy for effective and integrative treatment of tumor disease.

Distinct neural networks subserve placebo analgesia and nocebo hyperalgesia.

Neural networks involved in placebo analgesia and nocebo hyperalgesia processes have been widely investigated with neuroimaging methods. However, few studies have directly compared these two processes and it remains unclear whether common or distinct neural circuits are involved. To address this issue, we implemented a coordinate-based meta-analysis and compared neural representations of placebo analgesia (30 studies; 205 foci; 677 subjects) and nocebo hyperalgesia (22 studies; 301 foci; 401 subjects). Contrast analyses confirmed placebo-specific concordance in the right ventral striatum, and nocebo-specific concordance in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), left posterior insula and left parietal operculum during combined pain anticipation and administration stages. Importantly, no overlapping regions were found for these two processes in conjunction analyses, even when the threshold was low. Meta-analytic connectivity modeling (MACM) and resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) analyses on key regions further confirmed the distinct brain networks underlying placebo analgesia and nocebo hyperalgesia. Together, these findings indicate that the placebo analgesia and nocebo hyperalgesia processes involve distinct neural circuits, which supports the view that the two phenomena may operate via different neuropsychological processes.

Prospective memory training in young adults enhances trained-task but not transfer-task performance.

Training and transfer effects of prospective memory training have not been assessed in healthy young adults yet. The present study examined the effects of an 8-day prospective memory training programme using the Virtual Week computer game in 18-24-year-old students. Using the performance of an active control group as comparison, the study revealed a significant short-lived beneficial training-induced effect on a nearest-transfer task consisting of a different version of the trained task. No evidence was obtained for transfer effects to other tasks measuring prospective memory (near transfer), or to tasks measuring various executive functions or general intelligence (far transfer). These results were compared to those from a previous study in which an identical training and testing protocol was used in 13-15-year-old adolescents. This study did reveal some evidence of near and far transfer. The results of the two studies combined suggest a greater potential for prospective memory training to induce beneficial transfer effects in young adolescents than in young adults.

Training and transfer effects of prospective memory training in 13- to 15-year-old children.

Prospective memory (PM) plays a crucial role in children's academic achievement and interpersonal relationships. However, there is a lack of studies exploring training and transfer effects of process-based PM training in healthy young adolescents. In the current study, 13- to 15-year-old children participated in an 8-day PM training program using the Virtual Week computer game. Transfer of training benefits was measured using other PM tasks (near transfer) and tasks measuring various aspects of executive function (EF) and general intelligence (far transfer). An active control group was used as comparison to assess transfer effects immediately after training and 3 and/or 6 months after training. After training, the trained children performed better on the trained PM task than the control children, and this benefit was still present after 6 months. Significant training-induced positive transfer was observed in tasks measuring time-based PM and working memory updating, although the benefits were rather short-lived. No differential, training-induced benefits were found for any of the other transfer tasks. These results suggest some limited potential of PM training to enhance some aspects of PM memory and EF in young adolescents.

Are training and transfer effects of working memory updating training modulated by achievement motivation?

Previous studies examining effects of working memory (WM) updating training revealed mixed results. One factor that might modulate training gains, and possibly also transfer of those gains to non-trained cognitive tasks, is achievement motivation. In the present Studies 1 and 2, students with either a high (HAM) or low (LAM) achievement motivation completed a 14-day visuospatial WM updating training program. In Study 2, the students also performed a set of tasks measuring other executive functions and fluid intelligence prior to and after training. In both studies, the HAM students displayed a larger training gain than the LAM students. Study 2 revealed that after training, both groups showed better performance on the near-transfer but not far-transfer tasks. Importantly, the differential training gain was not associated with better post-training performance for the HAM compared to the LAM students on any of the transfer tasks. These results are taken to support a modulatory role of achievement motivation on WM training benefits, but not on transfer of those benefits to other tasks. Possible reasons for the general improvement on the near-transfer tasks and the absence of a modulatory role of achievement motivation on transfer-task performance are discussed.