Contextual modulation of preferred social distance during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Social distancing during a pandemic might be influenced by different attitudes: people may decide to reduce the risk and protect themselves from viral contagion, or they can opt to maintain their habits and be more exposed to the infection. To better understand the underlying motivating attitudes, we asked participants to indicate in an online platform the interpersonal distance from different social targets with professional/social behaviors considered more or less exposed to the virus. We selected five different social targets: a cohabitant, a friend working in a hospital, a friend landed from an international flight, a friend who is back from a cycling ride, or a stranger. In order to measure the realistic and the symbolic perceived threat, we administered the Brief 10-item COVID-19 threat scale. Moreover, in order to measure the risk attitude in different domains, the participants were also asked to fill in the Domain-Specific Risk-Taking DOSPERT scale. Results reveal a general preference for an increased distance from a stranger and the friends who are considered to be more exposed to the virus: the friend working in a hospital or landed from an international flight. Moreover, the interpersonal distance from friends is influenced by the perception of Realistic Threat measured through the Integrated Covid Threat Scale and the Health/Safety Risk Perception/Assumption as measured by the DOSPERT scale. Our results show the flexible and context-dependent nature of our representation of other people: as the social categories are not unchangeable fixed entities, the bodily (e.g., spatial) attitudes towards them are an object of continuous attunement.

The visual encoding of tool-object affordances.

The perception of tool-object pairs involves understanding their action-relationships (affordances). Here, we sought to evaluate how an observer visually encodes tool-object affordances. Eye-movements were recorded as right-handed participants freely viewed static, right-handed, egocentric tool-object images across three contexts: correct (e.g. hammer-nail), incorrect (e.g. hammer-paper), spatial/ambiguous (e.g. hammer-wood), and three grasp-types: no hand, functional grasp-posture (grasp hammer-handle), non-functional/manipulative grasp-posture (grasp hammer-head). There were three areas of interests (AOI): the object (nail), the operant tool-end (hammer-head), the graspable tool-end (hammer-handle). Participants passively evaluated whether tool-object pairs were functionally correct/incorrect. Clustering of gaze scanpaths and AOI weightings grouped conditions into three distinct grasp-specific clusters, especially across correct and spatial tool-object contexts and to a lesser extent within the incorrect tool-object context. The grasp-specific gaze scanpath clusters were reasonably robust to the temporal order of gaze scanpaths. Gaze was therefore automatically primed to grasp-affordances though the task required evaluating tool-object context. Participants also primarily focused on the object and the operant tool-end and sparsely attended to the graspable tool-end, even in images with functional grasp-postures. In fact, in the absence of a grasp, the object was foveally weighted the most, indicative of a possible object-oriented action priming effect wherein the observer may be evaluating how the tool engages on the object. Unlike the functional grasp-posture, the manipulative grasp-posture caused the greatest disruption in the object-oriented priming effect, ostensibly as it does not afford tool-object action due to its non-functional interaction with the operant tool-end that actually engages with the object (e.g., hammer-head to nail). The enhanced attention towards the manipulative grasp-posture may serve to encode grasp-intent. Results here shed new light on how an observer gathers action-information when evaluating static tool-object scenes and reveal how contextual and grasp-specific affordances directly modulate visuospatial attention.

Ferric chondroitin 6-sulfate (Condrofer): a new potent antianaemic agent with a favourable pharmacokinetic profile.

One and 3 mg/kg iron as Condrofer**, a new soluble formulation of this metal, and 1 mg/kg iron as Proteoferrina*** or ferritin were given orally for 4 weeks to male rats in which severe experimental anaemia had previously been induced (by iron-deficient diet and repeated bleedings). Haematological (erythrocyte count, haemoglobin, haematocrit, mean corpuscular volume, mean corpuscular haemoglobin, reticulocytes and leukocytes) and blood chemistry (sodium, potassium, iron and total protein) parameters were checked weekly and at the end of the drug administration period. Clinical and behavioral signs, body weight, food intake and necroscopic observations were also recorded. Condrofer time- and dose-dependently improved the general blood picture, the clinical data and the autoptic findings to the point of making these animals significantly approach control rats, save for one parameter, sideremia, which after 4 weeks of treatment remained lower than normal. The most plausible explanation would seem that the severe anaemia interfered both with the physiological iron storage and with the iron-dependent mitochondrial enzymatic systems. Iron (1 mg/kg) daily as Proteoferrina or ferritin was significantly less effective than when this metal was administered as Condrofer, since all the haematological parameters and the clinical, behavioral signs and necroscopic observations were less favourable. The more complete reversal of anaemia in the rats that received Condrofer is, most probably, due to the higher bioavailability of iron administered under this formulation, as demonstrated by iron kinetics after equidoses of iron as Condrofer and Proteoferrina.