Friend or foe? Using eye-tracking technology to investigate the visual discrimination ability of giant pandas

The role that visual discriminative ability plays among giant pandas in social communication and individual discrimination has received less attention than olfactory and auditory modalities.Here,we used an eye-tracker technology to investigate pupil fixation patterns for 8 captive male giant pandas Ailuropoda melanoleuca.We paired images(N=26)of conspecifics against:1)sympatric predators(gray wolves and tigers),and non-threatening sympatric species(golden pheasant,golden snub-nosed monkey,takin,and red panda),2)conspecifics with atypical fur colora-tion(albino and brown),and 3)zookeepers/non-zookeepers wearing either work uniform or plain clothing.For each session,we tracked the pan-da's pupil movements and measured pupil first fixation point(FFP),fixation latency,total fixation count(TFC),and duration(TFD)of attention to each image.Overall,pandas exhibited similar attention(FFPs and TFCs)to images of predators and non-threatening sympatric species.Images of golden pheasant,snub-nosed monkey,and tiger received less attention(TFD)than images of conspecifics,whereas images of takin and red panda received more attention,suggesting a greater alertness to habitat or food competitors than to potential predators.Pandas'TFCs were greater for images of black-white conspecifics than for albino or brown phenotypes,implying that familiar color elicited more interest.Pandas reacted differently to images of men versus women.For images of women only,pandas gave more attention(TFC)to familiar combinations(uniformed zookeepers and plain-clothed non-zookeepers),consistent with the familiarity hypothesis.That pandas can use visual perception to discriminate intra-specifically and inter-specifically,including details of human appearance,has applications for panda conservation and captive husbandry.

Altered electroencephalographic networks in developmental dyslexia after remedial training:a prospective case-control study

Electroencephalographic studies using graph theoretic analysis have found aberrations in functional connectivity in children with developmental dyslexia.However,how the training with visual tasks can change the functional connectivity of the semantic network in developmental dyslexia is still unclear.We looked for differences in local and global topological properties of functional networks between 21 healthy controls and 22 dyslexic children(8–9 years old)before and after training with visual tasks in this prospective case-control study.The minimum spanning tree method was used to construct the subjects’brain networks in multiple electroencephalographic frequency ranges during a visual word/pseudoword discrimination task.We found group differences in the theta,alpha,beta and gamma bands for four graph measures suggesting a more integrated network topology in dyslexics before the training compared to controls.After training,the network topology of dyslexic children had become more segregated and similar to that of the controls.In theθ,αandβ1-frequency bands,compared to the controls,the pre-training dyslexics exhibited a reduced degree and betweenness centrality of the left anterior temporal and parietal regions.The simultaneous appearance in the left hemisphere of hubs in temporal and parietal(α,β1),temporal and superior frontal cortex(θ,α),parietal and occipitotemporal cortices(β1),identified in the networks of normally developing children was not present in the brain networks of dyslexics.After training,the hub distribution for dyslexics in the theta and beta1 bands had become similar to that of the controls.In summary,our findings point to a less efficient network configuration in dyslexics compared to a more optimal global organization in the controls.This is the first study to investigate the topological organization of functional brain networks of Bulgarian dyslexic children.Approval for the study was obtained from the Ethics Committee of the Institute of Neurobiology and the Institute for Population and Human Studies,Bulgarian Academy of Sciences(approval No.02-41/12.07.2019)on March 28,2017,and the State Logopedic Center and the Ministry of Education and Science(approval No.09-69/14.03.2017)on July 12,2019.