English for Science 1 Course Book

Faculty of Science Mahasarakham University

Dr. Jolyon Dodgson

V. 1

Introduction Chapter 1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 1.10 Chapter 2 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Chapter 3 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.3.1 3.3.2 3.3.3 3.3.4 3.3.5 Chapter 4 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.6.1 4.6.2 4.6.3 4.6.4 Chapter 5 5.1 5.2 Reading Skimming Scanning Skimming vs. scanning Detailed reading Studying the text Critical reading - Including critical thinking Active reading Dictionaries and glossaries Reading scientific papers (journal articles) Practice reading English Ways to improve your English reading comprehension Paraphrasing and Summarizing Quotations Paraphrasing and summary Paraphrasing Paraphrase: Write it in your own words Summarizing Basic Grammar for English for science Adverbs Articles Verb tenses The present The past The present perfect What other tenses are used in scientific and technical writing? Points to check in your writing Basic Scientific writing Passive voice Prefixes Suffixes Cause and effect linking words Systems and processes Style Objectivity Clarity Formality Hedging Poster Presentations What is a scientific poster? How to make your poster

3 4 4 5 5 5 6 7 7 8 9 9 11 11 11 12 13 15 17 17 19 21 22 23 24 24 25 26 26 27 30 33 35 36 36 37 38 41 44 44 45 51 60 62 66 70 71 72

Appendix 1 Newspaper passages Appendix 2 Short comprehension passages Appendix 3 Long comprehension passages Appendix 4 Reading passages Appendix 5 Standard reading exercise Appendix 6 Paraphrasing passages Appendix 7 Scientific articles

Introduction
This book and the course book for the English for Science 2 course will cover the usage of English related to scientific work. The first semester will cover reading, writing summaries and poster presentations. This course book includes all the information that will be used in the PowerPoint presentations in each of the classes. You will need this guide in the classes as the lectures will use the examples in this book as starting points. You will also need the English for Science 1 Exercise Book as this contains all the exercises that you will do in the classes. You need to bring both books to all the classes. The most important sections will be explored in more detail in the lectures. This guide could be printed so that two pages are on each side of a piece of A4 paper. You should still be able to read it at that size and it will be cheaper to print. You will hopefully find this guide useful long after you have finished the English for Science course, as you can continue to use it as a reference. Remember that to get better at anything and especially learning a foreign language you need to practice, not just in class but every day. We hope that you will enjoy the class and wish you every success for completing it.

The English for Science Lectures

1 Reading
The information that you will be taught in your lectures and practical classes is only a small amount of the information that you will need to know if you are to be good at what you do when you leave university. The rest of the information you will need to find out for yourselves, most often from written sources, both while you are at university and in later life. The vast majority of information published is in English. So you will need to be able to, at the most basic level, identify what a piece of text is saying and ideally understand all the information contained within it. The strategies and techniques in this section will teach you how to obtain the most relevant information in the shortest time. They could also be used when you are reading information in Thai as well as in English. They are:

Knowing what you need to know, and reading appropriately. Knowing how deeply to read the document: skimming, scanning or studying. Using active reading techniques to pick out key points and keep your mind focused on the material. Critically read and think about everything you read (books, journal articles, magazines, lecture handouts) and decide if it is going to provide useful information. Using the table of contents for reading magazines and newspapers. Understanding how to extract information from different article types.

Before you start to read anything you need to know why you are reading it. If you are only reading something because your lecturer told you to, you will be wasting your time. Ask yourself why did my lecturer tell me to read this? Once you have decided what you are meant to be learning from a piece of writing you will be much more effective at remembering the information.

1.1 Skimming
Definition - Skimming is a reading technique that can help you to read more quickly, and then decide if the text is interesting and whether you should read it in more detail. Skimming is a fast reading technique. Use it to obtain the gist of a piece of text (i.e. to quickly identify the main ideas in the text). Explanation When skimming text:

do not read the whole text word-for-word. use as many clues as possible to give you some background information. For example there might be pictures or images related to the topic. let your eyes skim over the surface of the text and, whilst thinking about any clues you have found about the subject, look out for key words. read the title, subtitles and subheading to find out what the text is about. read the first and last sentence of each paragraph. continue to think about the meaning of the text.

1.2 Scanning
Definition - Scanning is a fast reading technique. It is a way of reading to look for specific information in a text. Explanation When scanning text:

do not try to read every word. Instead let your eyes move quickly across the page until you find what you are looking for. use clues on the page, such as headings and titles, to help you. in a dictionary or phone book, use the 'header' words to help you scan. You can find these in bold type at the top of each page. if you are reading for study, start by thinking up or writing down some questions that you want to answer. Doing this can focus your mind and help you find the facts or information that you need more easily. many texts use A-Z order. These include everyday materials such as the phone book and indexes to books and catalogues. there are many ways to practise scanning skills. Try looking up a favourite recipe in the index of a cookbook, search for a plumber in your local telephone book, or scan web pages on the Internet to find specific information.

Scanning is also useful when studying or looking to find specific information from a book or article quickly as there is not always time to read every word.

1.3 Skimming vs. scanning

The term skimming is often confused with scanning. Remember:

Skimming is used to obtain the gist (the overall sense) of a piece of text. o E.g. Use skimming to get the gist of a page of a textbook to decide whether it is useful and should therefore be read more slowly and in more detail. Scanning is used to obtain specific information from a piece of text. o E.g. Use scanning to find a particular number in a telephone directory.

Sometimes you can use both reading methods. After you have skimmed a piece of text to decide whether the text is of interest, you may wish to use scanning techniques to locate specific information.

1.4 Detailed reading Studying the text

Definition Detailed reading is slower reading than skimming or scanning but much more information will be obtained from the text. In detailed reading you will read most if not all of the words.

Explanation Detailed reading:

is a technique to use once you have decided if a text is useful. should be used after you have skimmed and scanned a text. is a slower technique so should be used to obtain detailed information. should use active reading techniques. should also be critical reading.

1.5 Critical reading - Including critical thinking

Definition Critical reading is a technique that identifies the reliability of a piece of text and the therefore the value that should be placed on the information it contains. Explanation When critically reading text:

you are evaluating the text for reliability. you identify the authors point of view. you understand that one text will present only one portrayal of the information. you identify if the text is offering examples, arguing, appealing for sympathy or making a contrast to clarify a point. Critical readers then infer what the text, as a whole, means, based on the earlier analysis.

When critically reading you should try to accomplish the following goals:

to recognize an authors purpose. to understand tone and persuasive elements. to recognize bias.

None of these goals actually refers to something on the page. Each requires inferences from evidence within the text:

Recognizing purpose involves inferring a basis for choices of content and language. Recognizing tone and persuasive elements involves classifying the nature of language choices. Recognizing bias involves classifying the nature of patterns of choice of content and language.

Critical reading is not simply close and careful reading. To read critically, one must think critically to actively recognize and analyze evidence upon the page. Critical thinkers:

are honest with themselves resist manipulation

overcome confusion ask questions, no matter where the information came from base judgments on evidence look for connections between subjects are intellectually independent

1.6 Active reading

Definition Active reading is a technique where you are thinking about and analyzing the text as you are reading it. Explanation Active reading techniques are:

Underline or highlight key words and phrases as you read. When you return to the text these will help you pick the important points quickly. Do not highlight too much as this will not help. Do not do this on borrowed books etc. Write notes or questions next to the text in the margins. This should take more thought than highlighting so you might remember the text better. Do not do this on borrowed books etc. Use Post-it notes if you do not want to write in the book. These can be left sticking out of pages so you can find the section again quickly. Make notes in your own journal of the main headings, keywords and new technical words. Read the text critically. Have a set of questions you would like to have answered by the end of the text. You can create your own index of information so that you can find related passages quickly in the future. Test your self sometime after reading the text by writing down all that you can remember. Look for signpost words that help you understand the text. For example most importantly, in contrast, on the other hand. Pay attention to the tables, figures and photographs. Make sure you understand these.

1.7 Dictionaries and glossaries

A dictionary is a very important tool when reading any text. For reading English or writing, a good paper English-Thai is very important. When your English skills become better try to use an English dictionary where the definitions are also in English. Use a large dictionary which defines words rather than referring you to another similar word that might also be unfamiliar to you. Also avoid dictionaries that use complicated words to define other words as you will then have to look up a second word to understand the first.

If you do not have your dictionary with you write down any words you do not know and look them up later. A glossary is a list of terms in a particular area of knowledge with the definitions for those terms. You could compile your own glossary of technical terms that you come across and use it supplement your dictionary when reading text, especially if you are reading large amounts of difficult technical material.

1.8 Reading scientific papers (journal articles)

Scientific papers:

present original, referred, in-depth information. are most often printed in English. are detailed. use experimental data to prove the authors claims. are written in formal English. are not always true.

Scientific papers follow set principles and are written in a specific way:

Title and authors names Abstract Introduction including a paragraph stating the aims Methods Results Discussion Conclusion often included as the last paragraph of the discussion Acknowledgements References

You do not need to read all of a paper to get useful information. A useful order in which to read a paper can be:

Title Form an initial guess about the article Keywords Revise the initial guess Abstract Compare the guess with the abstract Aim In the last paragraph of the introduction usually Introduction This should give useful background information Conclusion and discussion Did the authors manage to achieve the aim of the paper? Figures and tables Lists the data the conclusions are based on Methods and Results These provide the specific information on how the experiment was carried out and will usually be the most technical

1.9 Practice reading English

To improve your ability to read and understand English you need to practice reading. There are other ways besides reading scientific literature which you can use to practice your English reading skills. Reading classic books online If you have never had a chance to read the works of Dickens, Poe, or other classical English writers, you can find some of their works for free online. You can download entire books from Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page). You can get Dracula by Bram Stoker or the origin of Species by Charles Darwin. It also has a section of childrens books. Subscribe to internet newsletters If there is a hobby you are interested in, there will be authors writing newsletters about it in English. If you search the web, it should be fairly easy to locate websites that sponsor free newsletters. These newsletters are ideal, because they provide you with fresh and contemporary reading materials on a topic that you already know something about. Read news articles in English Unlike years ago, you can have access to news in English whenever you want. If you are interested in particular area of the world, you may even want to dedicate your reading time to those sections of the news. In most cases, you can find free news resources on the internet (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/default.stm). These may also be an excellent place for you to find the names of other websites that have additional information that you might be interested in.

1.10 Ways to improve your English reading comprehension

Improving your ability to read English quickly and accurately takes a great deal of practice. Once you know the basic elements of the English language, you can select from a wide variety of reading materials, including different methods of presentation. Play word games If you are looking for a way to improve your vocabulary and have fun at the same time, crossword puzzles and other types of word game puzzles can be of immense help to you. If this is something that interests you, you might also consider Scrabble, word searches and other similar games. Take notes on subjects that interest you If you are reading a book on a topic that you enjoy, take some notes. These can be direct samples from the text or you can try putting sections in your own words. As you write, you will also have an opportunity to think about the sentence structures and see how ideas are conveyed. This will help you learn to discuss these topics in a way that sounds more natural.

Select materials that will challenge you You need to constantly set new goals for yourself so that you continue to progress and improve. For example, if youre able to work your way through a 100 page childrens book, it is time to start tackling a longer book or one on a more difficult topic. Regardless of which subjects interest you the most, you will be able to find some books that are harder to comprehend than others. By applying yourself to the ones that are more difficult, you will improve your English. Read materials from many different authors Considering the number of people that have websites, it is easy to sample a wide range of English writing styles. This will help you to learn about the flexibility of the English language, as well as the means of expression that most people are comfortable with. If you already know a great deal about a certain topic in your native language, you can use that background to help you read websites in English that focus on similar concepts. For the most part, once you know the basic elements of the English language, practice and time will be your most valuable teachers. It is important to spend time reading materials that interest you in as many forms as possible. Over time you will see improvements in your comprehension of written English.

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2 Paraphrasing and summarizing

These three ways of incorporating other writers' work into your own writing differ according to the closeness of your writing to the source writing. Quotations must be identical to the original, using a narrow segment of the source. They must match the source document word for word and must be attributed to the original author. Paraphrasing involves putting a passage from source material into your own words. A paraphrase must also be attributed to the original source. Paraphrased material is usually shorter than the original passage, taking a somewhat broader segment of the source and condensing it slightly. Summarizing involves putting the main idea(s) into your own words, including only the main point(s). Once again, it is necessary to attribute summarized ideas to the original source. Summaries are significantly shorter than the original and take a broad overview of the source material. Why use quotations, paraphrases, and summaries? Quotations, paraphrases, and summaries serve many purposes. You might use them to: Provide support for claims or add credibility to your writing Refer to work that leads up to the work you are now doing Give examples of several points of view on a subject Call attention to a position that you wish to agree or disagree with Highlight a particularly striking phrase, sentence, or passage by quoting the original Distance yourself from the original by quoting it in order to cue readers that the words are not your own Expand the breadth or depth of your writing

2.1 Quotations
There are several ways to integrate quotations into your text. Often, a short quotation works well when integrated into a sentence. Longer quotations can stand alone. Remember that quoting should be done only sparingly; be sure that you have a good reason to include a direct quotation when you decide to do so.

2.2 Paraphrasing and summary

Whenever you are writing, either for you own notes or as part of a lab report or essay you will need to research and incorporate the writing of others into your own texts. Two unavoidable steps in that process are paraphrasing (changing the language into your own) and summarizing (getting rid of smaller details and leaving only the primary points). These steps are necessary for three reasons.

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First, if you used the original writers language without any changes, it limits your own learning; by paraphrasing and summarizing, you make a piece of information your own, and you understand it better. Second, the original writers did not write for the audiences you are targeting; there are inevitably contents and language choices that will not necessarily work for your audience. Third, what authors write is considered to be their property, just like a coat or a car; by copying it (without giving credit), you can be accused of plagiarism.

Summarizing and paraphrasing are frequently used together, but not always.

2.3 Paraphrasing
Paraphrasing is making different word choices and re-arranging words in such a way that maintains the same meaning, but sounds different enough that readers will not be reminded of the original writers words. Example The current constitutional debate over heavy metal rock and gangsta rap music is not just about the explicit language but also advocacy, an act of incitement to violence. Inadequate paraphrase Todays constitutional debate about gangsta rap and heavy metal rock is not just about obscene language but also advocacy and incitement of acts of violence. Adequate paraphrase Lyrics in some rap and heavy metal songs that appear to promote violence, along with concerns about obscenity, have generated a constitutional debate over popular music. Explanation In the inadequate paraphrase, the meaning of the original is altered somewhat: it claims that the debate is about advocacy AND violence, but it is supposed to be about advocacy FOR violence. Also, too few of the words have been changed, and the order of the sentence remains essentially the same. In the second attempt at paraphrasing, enough changes have been made so that readers would not feel that they are reading somebody elses words. When you are paraphrasing, there are a number of strategies you can apply: Locate the individual statements or major idea units in the original. Change the sentence structure and the order of major ideas, while maintaining the logical connections among them. For example, if the author you are paraphrasing presents a generalization and then backs it up with an example; try using the example as a lead-in to the generalization. For an individual

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sentence, try to relocate a phrase from the beginning of the sentence to a position near the end, or vice versa. Substitute words in the original with synonyms, making sure the language in your paraphrase is appropriate for your audience. Combine or divide sentences as necessary. Use direct quotations from the original sporadically, limiting yourself to quotations of the most striking or interesting language. Do not quote very plainly stated passages. Compare the paraphrase to the original to ensure that the rewording is sufficient and the meaning has been preserved. Add the paraphrase into your essay. Document the paraphrasegive formal credit to the original writer(s).

2.4 Paraphrase: Write it in your own words

Paraphrasing is one way to use a text in your own writing without directly quoting source material. Anytime you are taking information from a source that is not your own, you need to specify where you got that information. A paraphrase is: Your own rendition of essential information and ideas expressed by someone else, presented in a new form. One legitimate way (when accompanied by accurate documentation) to borrow from a source. A more detailed restatement than a summary, which focuses concisely on a single main idea.

Paraphrasing is a valuable skill because: It is better than quoting information from an undistinguished passage. It helps you control the temptation to quote too much. The mental process required for successful paraphrasing helps you to grasp the full meaning of the original.

6 Steps to Effective Paraphrasing: 1. Reread the original passage until you understand its full meaning. 2. Set the original aside, and write your paraphrase on a note card. 3. Jot down a few words below your paraphrase to remind you later how you envision using this material. At the top of the note card, write a key word or phrase to indicate the subject of your paraphrase. 4. Check your rendition with the original to make sure that your version accurately expresses all the essential information in a new form. 5. Use quotation marks to identify any unique term or phraseology you have borrowed exactly from the source. 6. Record the source (including the page) on your note card so that you can credit it easily if you decide to incorporate the material into your paper.

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What language changes do I make when paraphrasing? Vocabulary

keep the specialised terms that are related to the topic, or those for which there are no synonyms, e.g. calcium, neutron, protein do not change proper nouns (e.g. names of countries and organisations), numbers, formulae for the rest of your text, use different vocabulary whenever possible, especially simpler phrases and more common synonyms and expressions. Using your own words makes your paraphrase fit in with the style of the rest of your text.

Grammar the grammar of the original needs to be changed, so that the points you are reporting on fit in with the grammatical flow of your text if your paraphrase is summarising and thus shortening the original, this will involve reducing perhaps 3 or 4 sentences (or more) down to one. This will require you to use a variety of subordinate clauses and adverbial or participle phrases.

Points to check in your own writing: Are all my paraphrases relevant? Have I paraphrased the points from my sources accurately? Are my paraphrases of the right length? (not too short, not too long) Have I added my own opinion to the paraphrases? If so, have I made it clear what are the original writer's points and what are mine? Have I structured my paraphrases grammatically into my text, so as to maintain a natural and logical flow? Are they all properly referenced?

Examples to compare The original passage: Students frequently overuse direct quotation in taking notes, and as a result they overuse quotations in the final [research] paper. Probably only about 10% of your final manuscript should appear as directly quoted matter. Therefore, you should strive to limit the amount of exact transcribing of source materials while taking notes. Lester, James D. Writing Research Papers. 2nd ed. (1976): 46-47. A legitimate paraphrase: In research papers students often quote excessively, failing to keep quoted material down to a desirable level. Since the problem usually originates during note taking, it is essential to minimize the material recorded verbatim (Lester 46-47).

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An acceptable summary: Students should take just a few notes in direct quotation from sources to help minimize the amount of quoted material in a research paper (Lester 46-47). A plagiarized version: Students often use too many direct quotations when they take notes, resulting in too many of them in the final research paper. In fact, probably only about 10% of the final copy should consist of directly quoted material. So it is important to limit the amount of source material copied while taking notes.

2.5 Summarizing
In many situations, you will not have to provide the level of detail that the original writer did. At such times, you should summarize, or remove minor details. Heres an example: Example Overall, the first two quarters of 2008 have been profitable to the company. Nineteen of twenty departments report cutting costs at least twenty percent, and sales from fifteen departments have risen five percent, or about $5 million. Despite these positive developments, most department heads believe that they will not be able to maintain these levels for the remainder of the year. Revision The first two quarters of 2008 have been profitable, but the rest of the year is not expected to be as good. Unlike paraphrasing, the basic order of the original text is maintained. However, some words have been changed to close synonyms. When summarizing, avoid cutting too much important information. How to summarize - say the same thing in fewer words 1. Read the whole of the original text quickly to gain an impression of its content and its relevance to your work 2. Highlight the main points as you read 3. Make notes of your own on these points 4. Put away the original and rewrite your notes in your own words in complete sentences 5. Begin your summary with a statement of the main idea at the start. Don't forget to include referencing of your source. 6. Using your notes, write out your subsidiary or supporting points in coherent, well-connected sentences 7. Re-read your work to check that you have included all the information that you need.

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Points to check in your own writing: In my summary, is there a clear thesis statement (with the writer's main idea)? Does it give a reader who has not read the original a clear idea of what it said? Does it include the writer's other main supporting points? Have I cut out unnecessary detail and examples? Does the finished summary have the same balance of ideas as the original text? Is it written in simpler language than the original? Do the ideas in the summary flow logically and in grammatically well-linked sentences?

Example Original text At a typical football match we are likely to see players committing deliberate fouls, often behind the referees back. They might try to take a throw-in or a free kick from an incorrect but more advantageous positions in defiance of the clearly stated rules of the game. They sometimes challenge the rulings of the referee or linesmen in an offensive way which often deserves exemplary punishment or even sending off. No wonder spectators fight amongst themselves, damage stadiums, or take the law into their own hands by invading the pitch in the hope of affecting the outcome of the match. (100 words) Summary Unsportsmanlike behaviour by footballers may cause hooliganism among spectators. (9 words)

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3 Basic grammar for English for science

3.1 Adverbs
Adverbs are words that modify the meaning of another word or even a whole sentence. They do this by providing an answer to such questions as How?, To what extent?, Where?, When?, How often?, and In what manner?. A slightly non-planar crack is treated as being perturbed from perfectly planar reference crack. The perturbation method we develop here applies to any crack geometries. Finally, the normalised dynamic stress intensity factors are presented in Figs.10 and 11. Independently, using the same class as for material 1, we apply a different linear combination of all the nuclei of strain at the object point of material 2. Which other words can adverbs modify? They can modify: Verbs Magnesium is a metal which burns brightly. To what extent? Where? When? In what manner?

Adjectives This results in very large systems of equations due to the need to extend the discretisation well away from the zone of interest. Other adverbs A whole sentence This results in very large systems of equations due to the need to extend the discretisation well away from the zone of interest. Conversely, when the second material is softer than the one containing the fracture, it attracts the fracture towards the interface in the same manner the stiffer material drove it away.

How are adverbs formed? We can distinguish three types of adverbs: Simple Compound Derived (mostly derived from adjectives with ly) just, only, well, back, out, etc. therefore, hereby, herewith, etc. equally, finally, markedly, sideways, clockwise, northwards

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What are the problem areas when using adverbs? Confusing adjectives and adverbs Adjectives and adverbs can express the same idea, but whereas you use an adverb to modify a verb or adjective, adjectives can only be applied to nouns. Adjective Platinum has exceptional resistance to corrosion. Iron is easy to extract from iron ores. It is easy to extract from iron ores. Position of the adverb in the sentence Adverbs can be placed at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of a sentence. Using adverbs as sentence modifiers In academic writing, adverbs and adverbial phrases are frequently used as sentence modifiers. When they are used in this way at the beginning of a sentence, they are normally separated from the rest of the sentence by a comma. Using phrasal verbs Phrasal verbs consist of a verb plus a preposition, or a short adverb acting like a preposition, that combine to create a meaning different from the usual meanings of the individual words. Most of the words that make up phrasal verbs are short and frequently used. They function like normal verbs, but because they are idiomatic, they can create special vocabulary problems for non-native writers. Phrasal verbs are more suitable or appropriate for use in informal English, though some are quite acceptable in scientific report writing. Formal Informal reduce in amount, remove, calculate, postpone, abolish, conduct cut down, carry out cross out, work out, put off, do away with, Adverb Platinum is exceptionally corrosionresistant. Iron can easily be extracted from iron ores.

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3.2Articles
Correctly using and choosing the proper article is one of the biggest problems in English grammar. The indefinite articles, a / an, can be used to talk about objects or ideas in general one particular person or thing, when it is mentioned for the first time, or when the reader does not know which one is meant, or when it does not matter which one. The definite article, the, can be used o when the noun is singled out as unique or specific o when the reader already knows which particular person(s) or thing(s) etc you are talking about. What are the basic rules for using the articles? The indefinite article (a / an) is used with singular countable nouns referring to a nonunique item in general (separate objects, people, ideas, etc): Singular A microscope A scientist An experimental plan Plural Five microscopes A large number of scientists Several alternative experimental plans

The definite article (the) is used with nouns referring to a unique specific item. A noun can have a definite article when: It is modified by a superlative or ordinal number the first experiment the last measurement the most significant results the only time The telephone can be used to transfer data. They connected a phone line to a modem. The modem was connected to a computer in order for the computer to access the internet. The periodic table is often used in chemistry. The internet is now used by millions of people across the world. The coefficient of expansion of brass is 0.000026oC. The importance of international co-operation is emphasised in the report.

It refers to an entire type or species It refers to an item previously mentioned There is only one of something or it is fully specified by the context or background knowledge It is followed by of + noun phrase

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Note: Some generalisations may be needed in scientific use, in which case 'the' is left out in long, complex, uncountable or plural noun phrases, in particular those including an of + noun phrase. In these sentences, both options, i.e. using the articles or omitting them, are correct.

(The) Little-known sources of air pollution are misfires in a car's engine. (The) Creation of the simulation model allows for a degree of optimisation of (the) engine performance.

What is the difference between countable and uncountable nouns? The distinction between these two types of nouns is very important in English and understanding this will help you to use articles more accurately. Most nouns are either countable or uncountable, while some can be either, depending on the meaning or the context. Countable nouns are things we can count. We use them with the indefinite article a / an, and we can make them plural. Car, table, job, experiment, employer, teacher, laboratory, suggestion Uncountable nouns are things we cannot count. They include many abstract nouns that you may use frequently in scientific writing. They have no plural form and cannot be used with the indefinite article a / an. When you want to itemise these nouns, you have to add a phrase like a piece of.... Information, advice, music, money, progress, research, work, travel, luggage, The use of articles with countable and uncountable nouns is as follows: Indefinite Countable singular Countable plural Uncountable Ive got a new job. Theyve got new jobs. Ive got work now. Definite The job is interesting. The jobs are interesting. The work is interesting.

Some words which are basically uncountable nouns can also be used as countable nouns with a somewhat different meaning, and this applies to many words in scientific and technical English. As uncountable nouns, they refer to something general, e.g. metal, fuel, material, mass, velocity, pressure, power, water, analysis, science, sound, temperature As countable nouns, they refer to something more specific, one or more of a set, e.g. a soft metal, a carbonated water, a velocity of 25 m. per second, an analysis of this problem 20

Example sentences - Note that the countable version of the noun is used when it is defined in some way, either by an adjective or an of phrase. Uncountable A thermometer measures temperature. Temperature is generally expressed in degrees. This factory produces steel. Water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen. This problem is beyond human understanding. Countable The thermometer showed a temperature of over 50oC. The boy had a high temperature. Cheaper mild steels are now being produced. A water molecule is composed of two hydrogens and one oxygen. A clear understanding of the practical implications lies at the heart of successful flow modelling.

How can I choose the correct article? Here is a flow chart which may aid you in correctly choosing the proper article.

Enter noun phrase

Uncountable Or Countable

General Or Specific

Use no article Use the

Plural Or Singular

General Or Specific

Use a / an Use the

3.3 Verb tenses

In scientific and technical writing the choice of verb tenses is quite limited. The most commonly used tenses are: the present the past the present perfect

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3.3.1 The present

The present tense expresses a constant, repeated, habitual, or customary action or condition. It can also express a general truth or an action or condition that is happening right now. A constant action A condition that is generally true Not always but happening now The Volga River flows southward to the Caspian Sea. Mercury is the planet nearest the sun. Samantha feels happy.

The present tense of all verbs except be is the same as the base form of the verb. To form the third-person singular of these verbs, add -s or -es to the base form. Singular I lift. I am. You lift. You are. She, he, or it lifts. She, he, or it is. We lift. We are. Plural You lift. You are. They lift. They are.

How is the present tense used? It is used to state facts that are generally valid from the point of view of the writer. Therefore, use it in the following situations: When writing about your topic or background. Lasers are devices which amplify light and produce beams of light which are very intense, directional, and pure in colour. Little is known about HPS systems, which are the subject of the following chapter. Here we investigate the properties of the above mentioned metals. The perturbation method we develop here applies to any crack geometry as long as the crack-face weight function solutions are known for the corresponding reference crack. In cases when the eigenvalue of interest is well separated from the others, K2 tends to increase the natural frequencies of the forward and backward waves but decrease the natural frequency of the reflected wave, just opposite to the effect of M2.

When explaining your purpose.

When presenting results, if the findings are general facts.

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When making general statements, e.g. in conclusions.

This observation indicates an obvious inconsistency that is avoided by the introduction of generalised principles. The author believes that one particular application, where the results can be useful, is the modelling of contact problems involving anisotropic materials. The plotter represents another important output device. The plotter makes hard copy of the product represented by digital information in the computer. Most CAD systems use a pen plotter.

There are differences in the way the passive and the active forms are used: The present simple passive is used when describing a process or procedure. The present simple active is preferred in physical descriptions, such as describing a piece of apparatus or equipment.

3.3.2 The past

The past tense expresses an action or condition that was started and completed in the past. The dogs chased the car until it turned the corner. Except for be all regular and irregular verbs have one past-tense form. The past-tense form of be may be either was or were. Singular I drifted. I was. You drifted. You were. She, he, or it drifted. She, he, or it was. We drifted. We were. Plural You drifted. You were. They drifted. They were.

How is the past tense used? You use this when referring to specific tasks carried out, such as taking measurements, conducting experiments, describing methods actually used, or presenting your results and conclusions from the particular piece of work. The past simple passive is mainly used when we report a particular procedure related to only one particular occasion in the past. In Fig.4 the uniaxial curve was calculated using Eq. /51/, the deviatoric stress-strain curve was calculated using Eq./20/, and the hydrostatic stress-strain curve was calculated using Eq./52/. Experimental results were obtained by the use of surface wave transducers, which were placed on two perpendicularly intersecting faces of a polished aluminium block. 23

The past tense is also used in the introduction to give historical background or development in the field of interest.

Technologists and craftspeople of early civilisations built huge objects. Algebra and trigonometry were well understood and applied during those early years. Construction of the pyramids of Egypt and of Central and South America required experience and the labour of many people. I started my research at the beginning of this term. The work, which led to this paper, was sponsored by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. This financial support is greatly appreciated.

The past tense is commonly used in acknowledgements.

3.3.3 The present perfect

The present perfect tense expresses an action or condition that occurred at some indefinite time in the past. This tense also shows an action or condition that began in the past and continues into the present. To form the present perfect tense, use has or have with the past participle of a verb. She has heard this song. (past indefinite action) They have remained at the hospital for three days. (action began in past, continues into present) How is the present perfect used? It is commonly used in the introduction, particularly when you want to recapitulate the state of the art and show what work has been done and is still in progress. Recent progress in materials science, the development of new sophisticated applicationdesigned materials, and especially the unique qualities of composite materials, have given a renewed interest in the problems arising when several different material phases interact with each other. This chapter has provided you with career information that will help you decide whether or not to pursue a technical degree.

3.3.4 What other tenses are used in scientific and technical writing?
Present Continuous This can be found in reports on studies or research, mainly in the introduction. You use it when you want to stress that something is currently in progress or is only temporary. I am studying for a Ph.D. at Brno University of Technology. I am doing research into the problems of industrial waste.

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Past Perfect This is not commonly used in technical/scientific writing. However, it is the tense you would use if you want to indicate that one action preceded another action in the past. Future tense with will This is not so frequently used as the present and past tenses. Use it when explaining how you intend to present information, give examples or describe visuals. It also indicates future events or parts of your work that come later. Conditional In technical and scientific writing, the conditional is mainly used in acknowledgements:

The epoxy, a modified bisphenol that had been mixed with an amido-amine hardener, was cast directly to the glass and cured at room temperature for at least a week.

The following examples of converting English units will employ a technique known as multiplying by the unit ratio. We will consider here the operating environment. Item number I 'concrete' will be examined to clarify further the spreadsheet results. The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the National Science Foundation through Grant number CDR 589712. Both professionally and personally, I should like to thank just some of the many people who have influenced this book.

3.3.5 Points to check in your writing

Within one paragraph, it is not usual to shift tenses unless there is a good reason to do so. The example below is the final paragraph of the introduction to a scientific paper. This paragraph: summarises the purpose of the paper (in the past tense), states the current state of development in the area of interest (present perfect), indicates the aim of the paper (future tense), and reports the results performed by the authors (past tense). The purpose of the work presented here was to examine interfacial crack initiation over a wide range of mode mixes. The analysis and development of a suitable specimen and biaxial device have already been described. This paper will present the results and analysis of a series of experiments that were conducted with various combinations of tensile and positive or negative shear loads. When all verbs describe a sequence of actions or states, their tenses should be the same. This is often the case in describing an experiment. In the petroleum industry, one of the most widely used methods for enhancing production is the hydraulic fracturing process. The method involves packing off a section of a borehole in the "pay zone" and hydraulically pressurizing it until the formation fractures. The fracture is then propagated by keeping the borehole pressurized, typically by controlling the flow rate at the surface.

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4 Scientific writing
4.1 Passive voice
Definition The passive voice is a form in which the subject of a verb is the receiver of the action rather than the doer of the action being the subject. Example Active Passive When did somebody invent television? When was television invented?

Explanation The passive voice is used in scientific writing as the processes, reactions and mechanisms being reported are what the readers are interested in and not the person that produced them. The passive if formed by combining the verb to be and the past participle (-ed or irregular form) e.g. subject + to be (depending on tense) + past participle. See section 2.7 for more information on passives. Forms of to be (different tenses) Tense Present simple Present continuous Past simple Past continuous Past perfect Present perfect Future (will) Future (going to) Future perfect Form of to be It is It is being It was It was being It had been It has been It will be It is going to be It will have been

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Examples of active and passive forms Active They* MAKE paper from wood pulp. Albert Einstein DEVELOPED the "Theory of Relativity". They* IMPORT rubber from India. They* MAKE butter from milk. Alexander Graham Bell INVENTED the telephone in 1876. They* MAKE the 'fizz' in fizzy drinks with carbon dioxide. They* DROVE the first cars in Germany in 1885. Passive Paper IS MADE from wood pulp. The "Theory of Relativity" WAS DEVELOPED by Albert Einstein. Rubber IS IMPORTED from India. Butter IS MADE from milk. The telephone WAS INVENTED by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. The 'fizz' in fizzy drinks IS MADE using carbon dioxide. The first cars WERE DRIVEN by Gottleib Daimler and Karl Benz in 1893.

*When 'they' is used in these examples it does not refer to any person or group of people in particular.

4.2 Prefixes
Definition - Prefixes are small parts of words that are added to a word to change the meaning. Prefixes are added to the beginning of a word. Example Prefix "happy" becomes "unhappy" when you add the prefix "un" ("un-" means "not," so "unhappy" means "not happy")

Explanation Prefixes:

are added to the beginning of words. can be added to nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.

Chart of common negative and positive prefixes Prefix Negative: antidedisMeaning against reduce, reverse opposite feeling Examples antiglare, antistatic demagnetize, decode disagree

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disiliminirmalmisnonununderPositive: overre-

opposite action not not not not bad, wrong bad, wrong not connected with not too little too much do again

disconnect illegal impossible incomplete irregular, irrelevant malfunction misdirect non-programmable unmagnetized underestimate overload reorganize

Chart of common prefixes of size Prefix equimacromegamicrominisemiMeaning equal large, great large, great very small small half, partly Examples equidistant macroeconomics megabyte microcomputer, microscopic minicomputer semiconductor

Chart of common prefixes of location Prefix exextrainfraintermidperiMeaning out beyond below between, among middle around Examples exclude, extrinsic extraordinary infra-red interface, interactive midbrain peripheral, periscope

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subsupertrans-

under over across

subschema, subtraction supersonic transmit, transfer

Chart of common prefixes of number Prefix bicentdechexmonomultioctpentapolyquadsemisept(em)triuniMeaning two hundred ten six one many eight five many four half seven three one Examples binary centenarian decimal hexadecimal monochromatic multiplexor, multicoloured octal pentagon polysaccharide quadruple semicircle September triangle unicellular

Chart of common prefixes of time and order Prefix antepostpreprimeretroMeaning before After before First backward Examples antecedent postdated, post-natal prefix, preceding, precedent primary, primitive retrograde, retroactive

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Chart of other prefixes Prefix a-, abaqua-, hydroautococongeohyper-, superprovitaMeaning without, away water self together with together with earth exceeding before, in advance, forward life Examples abiotic, abstinence aquatic, hydrolytic automatic co-ordinate, co-operate connect geology hypertension, superior programme, progress, procreation vitalise

4.3 Suffixes
Definition - Suffixes are small parts of words that are added to a word to change the meaning. Suffixes are added to the end of a word. Example Suffix "paint" becomes "painter" when you add the suffix "-er" ("-er" means "person who does something," so "painter" means "the person who paints")

Explanation Suffixes:

are added to the end of words. can be added to nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.

Chart of noun-forming suffixes Suffix -ance -dom -ence -er, -or Meaning state domain/condition quality of a person who Examples performance freedom independence programmer, operator, biographer

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-er, -or -ian -ing -ion -ism -ist, -yst -ity -ment -ness -ship -tion, -ation

a thing which pertaining to activity action/state condition/state a person who state, quality state, action condition of condition/state the act of

compiler, processor, calculator electrician multiplexing conversion magnetism analyst, typist electricity measurement, requirement readiness, cleanliness, happiness relationship, partnership compilation

Chart of verb-forming suffixes Suffix -ate -en -ify -ize/-ise Chart of adverb-forming suffixes Suffix -ly Meaning in the manner of Examples electronically, logically, comparably, slowly, quickly, automatically, carefully Meaning to make Examples automate, activate, calculate harden, widen, lengthen, shorten simplify computerize

Chart of adjective-forming suffixes Suffix -able -al -ar -ble Meaning capable of being having the quality of having the quality of capable of being Examples comparable computational, logical circular, rectangular, cellular, regular divisible

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-ed -ful -ic -ical -ish -ive -less -ous

having the quality of characterized by having the quality of having the quality of like having the quality of without like, full of

computed, processed helpful, careful magnetic, automatic electrical yellowish interactive careless, meaningless dangerous, insidious, miraculous

Chart of biological suffixes Suffix -algia -ase -cidal -ectomy -gnosis -gram -graph -itis -lysin, -lysis, lytic -lysis, lyso-, lyse-meter -ology -phyll -scope -sect -sonic -verse Meaning pain designating, an enzyme killing excision, cut away knowledge, to know record to write inflammation dissolve, destroy dissolve, destroy measure study of leaf to view to cut sound turn Examples neuralgia amylase bactericidal appendectomy diagnosis spirogram cardiograph appendicitis haemolysis lysosome thermometer biology chlorophyll microscope dissect supersonic reverse

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4.4 Cause and effect linking words

Definition Linking words are used to join to two sentences together. They are used in scientific writing to indicate cause and effect of actions or in experiments. They can also be used to compare ideas, contrast ideas and introduce examples. Example Conjunction Transitions Prepositions Explanation Conjunctions and transitions are used to join two complete sentences (or independent clauses) together. See sections 1.16 and 7.7 for more information. The most important conjunctions are because, as, since (which are used to introduce a cause) and so (which introduces an effect). The most important transitions are therefore, consequently and as a result (which all introduce an effect). Prepositions are used to introduce a cause in the form of a noun phrase. See section 1.14 for more information. The most important prepositions are due to and because of. List of cause and effect linking words Meaning Basic form and formal More formal additionally besides further furthermore in addition last but not least next not only... but also too as a result for this reason thus Most formal I stayed at home, because it was raining It was raining; therefore, I stayed at home. I stayed at home, due to the rain.

Addition

also first, second, third, etc.

equally important moreover similarly

Cause-effect

because since then therefore

accordingly as a consequence consequently hence

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Comparison

also like too as well

as well as both... and compared to in the same way likewise neither... nor

by comparison in common with similarly in like manner conversely in contrast to in opposition to on the contrary otherwise still whereas although even though

Contrast

however but

instead nevertheless on the other hand

Time

after a while after that also at last currently earlier eventually finally first, second, third, etc. in the future in the past last next now for example

afterward at the same time formerly immediately in the meantime later

concurrently previously simultaneously subsequently

Example

for instance in other words

as an example as an illustration to exemplify accordingly as a consequence in brief in closing in conclusion in short to sum up in summary to conclude to summarize

Summaryconclusion

finally therefore

after all all in all at last briefly consequently last on the whole thus

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4.5 Systems and processes

Definition - In scientific writing you often have to describe how something works or how to perform an experiment. You need to describe the systems and processed that you used to obtain your results. Example You have to turn the computer on. After that you have to load your work. Before you can continue your work. Explanation When describing systems and processes you might have to explain:

Sequences Purpose (why to do something) Classification Examples Instructions General truths (an action will give such a result) Warnings

List of words for describing sequences Sequencers First (ly)... Second (ly)... Then ... Next... After that... Having (previously) been... At the same time... Simultaneously Lastly... Finally... Before Explaining Purpose Classifying There are two types/kinds/sorts of..... ....can divided into 3 types/categories ....comes into the first category Giving examples For example Take...for instance ...such as...

to... in order to.... so that... in order that... because

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Examples of sentences for giving instructions, general truths and warnings Instructions Use modal verbs You have to (it's necessary to) You mustn't (it's wrong to) You needn't (it isn't necessary to) You don't have to (it isn't necessary to) IF you press this key, the computer prints out the reading IF you open the door, the power is automatically cut off IF you press this key by mistake, you WILL lose all the data IF you don't wear goggles, chemical drops MIGHT get in your eyes during the experiment.

General truths

ACTION.......RESULT ZERO Conditional Tense: IF + DOES (present simple), DO (present simple) BE CAREFUL!! FIRST Conditional Tense: IF + DOES (present simple), WILL DO (future)

Warnings

4.6 Style
When publishing in English you need to take account of the general rules which have become accepted as the norm in academic communication. In writing technical and scientific papers in particular, you should aim to achieve objectivity, clarity and precision. In addition, there are conventions governing the use of formal patterns, though the need to establish rapport with your audience and to make your writing reader-friendly has an influence on determining your selection of formal or informal language phrases.

4.6.1 Objectivity
Objectivity is generally governed by the research topic although obviously it is individuals who actually have to select, arrange and present their findings. Thus it is your task, as the writer, to deal with your topic in a fair, objective and responsible manner, keeping your personal feelings out of your writing. From a language point of view, objectivity and a neutral approach (impersonal style) may be achieved by using the passive voice and by avoiding ambiguous statements. Avoidance of confusing metaphoric elements, use of precise and well-established technical terms may add to effective writing and help to produce explicitness of standard academic description. Using the passive voice in impersonal writing Scientific writing is usually done in an impersonal style. Information and facts are more important than personal opinions or attitudes. This style is also used to put a certain distance between the writer and the arguments proposed and thus makes them more objective.

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Personal/informal We can distinguish limits to other technical systems by In the present article I want to We tested thirteen SGS models and as a result we selected the superior variants I assume that The authors consider these results to be Because we want to evaluate

Impersonal/formal Limits to other technical systems can be distinguished by The present article is intended to contribute Thirteen SGS models were tested and as a result, the superior variants were selected It is assumed that These results are considered to be In order to evaluate

4.6.2 Clarity
Simplicity of text and of text composition are important prerequisites to readability. You should always try to write in a plain, clear and straightforward manner. Overlong sentences or lengthy chains of clauses and groups of words can easily prevent your reader from understanding what you want to say. As a rule, you should not add more than 2 to 3 clauses of any sort to form one sentence. Repeating words, signposting and using linking devices which help the reader to connect and relate information are useful ways of achieving clarity and readability. Example paragraphs 1) The following overlong sentence is almost unintelligible: Axis-boundary conditions for the SGS stresses in case of scale similarity and mixed-type models are specified in terms of GS velocities at the axis so as to be compatible in the statistical mean with expressions for the axis values of...following from the kinematics of homogeneous axis symmetric turbulences as well as from the statistically averaged dynamic equations for the GS velocity field taking into account statistically steady and homogeneous flow conditions. This can be re-written, as below, in order to make the meaning clearer. The text is divided into three shorter sentences and linking words and phrases added. Axis-boundary conditions for the SGS stresses in case of scale similarity and mixed-type models are specified in terms of GS velocities at the axis. This is done so that they are compatible in the statistical means...for the GS velocity field. Statistically steady and homogeneous flow conditions are also taken into account.

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2) In the following paragraph, notice the use of the linking phrases, or semantic markers (in bold), which have been used in order to shorten sentences and make them understood more easily, thus improving readability: In the first of this two-paper sequence, a highly automated method for generating reduced-order dynamic macro models for electrostatically MEMS devices was presented. The approach was to use selected linear elastic modes of the device as basic functions, and to express the kinetic and potential energy in terms of basis-function amplitudes and their time derivatives. It was demonstrated that this procedure could, indeed, be executed nearly automatically, requiring only a few inputs from the designer to select parameters for the macro model. However, while the procedure works well for nonlinearities produced outside the electric body, such as the non-linear electrostatic force between the plates of a parallel-plate capacitor with one plate being flexible, it fails to capture the correct mechanical structural stiffness when the deflections become comparable to a typical thickness. This effect is generally referred to as... Expressing your ideas concisely Being concise in your writing means expressing your ideas in as few words as possible. This involves not repeating what you say, cutting out irrelevant details and avoiding redundancy, that is, the use of unnecessary words. If your sentences are too 'wordy', they are difficult for the reader to understand. Wordy sentences We continued our activities in the development of new protocols for group communication. The different materials that contribute to an environmental impact have quantitatively different potential environmental effects. More concise sentences We have developed new protocols for group communications. Different materials have different environmental impacts.

4.6.3 Formality
Academic writing follows certain rules of formality which non-native writers should not violate without very good reasons. Colloquial words and expressions Colloquial words and expressions are language items that are used in spoken and informal English. They might have different meanings when used by different groups of people or might be local/regional words that would not be understood by the majority of English speakers. They should not be used in scientific writing. They would include words such as: stuff, a lot of, thing, sort of

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Contracted verb forms These are the representations in writing of verb forms normal in speech; a letter in the verb has been omitted, as indicated by an apostrophe. These contractions should be avoided in academic writing. Wrong Correct This is a problem of linear algebra which won`t be discussed here. This is a problem of linear algebra which will not be discussed here.

It is true that nowadays contracted verb forms can be found in scientific publications as they are increasingly regarded as a way of producing informality, thus creating communication with the audience. However, as a general principle, contractions are still not acceptable in technical-scientific papers and should be written out in full. Use of the first person pronoun It is normal practice to avoid using the personal pronoun "I" in scientific articles. Instead, "we" or "the team" are preferred. Some kind of switching between the different forms may nevertheless be appropriate in order to make the reader more involved in the argumentation. The switch from "we" or impersonal forms to "I" may help to establish the sometimes more desirable informal relationship with the reader. Examples of formal and informal words It is often the case that formal words are longer than informal words, formal words are single words not multi-words and formal words are of French/Latin origin rather than their informal equivalents which are of Anglo-Saxon origin. For example: "depart" is from French/Latin but "go" is Anglo-Saxon.

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Formal amiable appear ascend assist cease commence complete comprehension consume decrease deficiency demonstrate depart desire energetic enquire finally finish fortunate immature immediately incorrect indistinct inexpensive inferior inform

Informal friendly seem climb help stop begin whole understanding use shorten lack show go want lively ask in the end end lucky childish at once wrong dim cheap worse tell

Formal initially insane intermittently obtain opportunity perspiration preserve principally reject relaxed release repair repeatedly require reside residence responsible retain subsequently sufficient superior therefore transparent vacant vision

Informal at first mad on and off get chance sweat keep mainly say no laid back free mend again and again need live house in charge keep next enough better so clear empty sight

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4.6.4 Hedging
What is hedging? Hedging means not making blunt, absolute or categorical statements; it means avoiding over- generalisations; it means toning down the positiveness of your statements to allow for others to disagree with them. Why is hedging important in scientific writing? Authors of scientific articles generally write in an impersonal style in order to sound more objective and convincing. They also want to avoid showing their personal attitude to their subject or an over-strong commitment to a particular conclusion, so hedging what they say is a way of accomplishing this. It thus involves not expressing the truth of a claim too strongly. Too direct and straightforward argumentation may give the impression of overconfidence and this could puzzle some readers, particularly British or Asian ones who may consider it offensive. What techniques can I use for hedging? In order to avoid over generalising (especially in experimental descriptions) or to avoid being too critical or direct, there are a number of hedging phrases and other techniques that can be used to help establish better communication and rapport with the reader. These hedging devices are found quite frequently in introductions and conclusions. Use of first person pronouns It is best for writers to avoid describing their findings in the first person I / me / my, since normally these pronouns would only be used by famous and important researchers or representatives of schools. In general, structures with we / us / our are preferred. This also has a rhetorical function: it implies the inclusion of the author as a co-member of a group. Thus if you want to state whether you are able to present positive, successful results or not, you can say: We do not yet know... Using tentative verb forms Statements that are too direct or over-positive can be softened as in these examples: Over-positive statement The investigations of the present work contribute to the model and filter components of LES We propose a methodological approach The use of equivalence factors for ecotoxic effect should be rejected Hedged statement The investigations of the present work are intended as a contribution to the model and filter components of LES We would therefore propose It is better for the use of equivalence factors for ecotoxic effect to be avoided 41

Different variants of the disposal structures must be transferred in computer-aided modes

It is recommended that different variants of the disposal structures be transferred in computer-aided modes...

Particularly useful verbs for hedging are seem to, appear to, tend to, as in these phrases: Our data seem / appear to demonstrate that indicate that suggest that imply that Our data do not appear to confirm that Our data tend to support the hypothesis that Using modal verbs Many modal verbs indicate tentativeness or a lack of certainty and can therefore be used to soften what you want to say. Particularly useful modal verbs for this are can / could / may / might / would. Direct sentence It will be of interest to compose These findings suggest the following interpretation X is due to Y Our data are expected to show From these results we conclude This assumption also explains why The present model is particularly useful ... Finally, the insecurities of the evaluation have to be discussed. Using adverbs Using certain adverbs of degree and attitudinal adverbs can be used to soften what you say. They are especially useful when making generalisations, circumventing giving exact numerical data (when necessary) or avoiding making a claim for absolute truth. Hedged sentence It might be of interest to compose These findings would / might / could suggest the following interpretation X might / could be due to Y Our data would be expected to show From these results we may conclude This assumption may also help to explain why The present model should be particularly useful As a final step, the insecurities of the evaluation will need to be discussed.

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Looking for oval pieces from the past, we found a long list but certainly there are more examples Other modifying expressions: a little, rather, somewhat, almost, nearly, quite, approximately, about

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5 Poster presentations
5.1 What is a scientific poster?
Posters are a special type of presentation. When well designed, they are not simply journal papers pasted onto boards. Nor are they mounted sets of presentation visuals. Rather, posters, when effectively designed, are something in between. The purpose of scientific posters is to present work to an audience who is walking through a hallway or exhibit. In poster presentations at conferences, the presenter usually stands next to the poster, thus allowing for passers-by to engage in one-on-one discussions with the presenter. In other situations such as the hallways of laboratories, universities, and corporations, posters are stand-alone presentations for passers-by. For a poster to communicate the work, the poster first has to orient an audience that is not seated, but that is standing. Often the audience has distractions of noise and movement from other people. First, the title of an effective poster should quickly orient the audience. Here are some guidelines for poster titles: Make the title the most prominent block of text on the poster. Do not typeset the title in all capital letters (such text is difficult to read). Use small words such as of, from, with, to, the, a, an, and and to separate details in the title.

While phrase titles are most common, some scientists and engineers effectively use sentence titles for posters that present one main result. Second, the poster should quickly orient the audience to the subject and purpose. One good test is whether the audience recognizes the subject and purpose within 20 seconds of seeing the poster. Usually, a poster accomplishes this goal with a wellcrafted title and with supporting images. Also, make sure that the type is large enough to be read and that enough contrast exists between the colour of the type and poster's background. Third, the specific sections such as the results should be easy to locate on the poster. Once readers recognize what the work is, they decide how much energy to invest into the poster. For instance, many will read only the motivation for the work, the objectives (or goals) of the work, and then the final results. Others, who have a deep interest in the topic, will try to read the poster from beginning to end. Given these different approaches to reading posters, another characteristic of an effective poster is that specific sections are easy to locate.

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Fourth, you should design the individual sections of a poster so that they can be quickly read. The poster should not contain large blocks of text. Neither should the poster contain long sentences. If possible, the sections should rely on images: photographs, drawings, and graphs.

5.2 How to make your poster

General format

Determine the one essential concept you would like to get across to the audience. Determine the size of the poster.

Preparing a poster will take as much time as you let it. Allocate your time wisely. If you have little experience making posters, it will take longer.

A good way to start: Sketch it out! Make a sketch of the poster. Arrange the contents in a series of columns.

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Place the elements of the poster in position:

The title will appear across the top. A brief introduction will appear at the upper left. The conclusions will appear at the lower right. Methods and Results will fill the remaining space.

The Title This part of the poster includes the title of the work, the authors names, & the institutional affiliations. Think BIG!

The title should be readable from 15 - 20 feet away. If space permits, use first names for authors to facilitate interactions. Use abbreviations where possible.

Sequencing contents A poster should use photos, figures, and tables to tell the story of the study. For clarity, present the information in a sequence that is easy to follow:

Determine a logical sequence for the material you will be presenting. Organize that material into sections, e.g., Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, &, if necessary, Literature Cited. (Avoid using too many citations. If only a few are used, a literature cited section is unnecessary. Instead, cite as follows in the text: Clinton, B. 1993. Auk 107:234-246.). You may wish to use numbers to help sequence sections of the poster. Arrange the material into columns. The poster should not rely upon your verbal explanation to link together the various portions.

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Edit Ruthlessly! - There is almost always too much text in a poster.

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1. Posters primarily are visual presentations; the text should support the graphics.

2. Look critically at the layout. Some poster 'experts' suggest that if there is about 2025% text, 40-45% graphics and 30-40% empty space, you are doing well.

3. Delete all redundant references and filler phrases. 4. An abstract may not be necessary. If you've kept the amount of text on your poster to a minimum, an abstract is likely redundant. The poster is not a publication of record, so excessive detail about methods, or vast tables of data are not necessary. Such material can be discussed with interested persons individually during or after the session, or presented in a handout. 48

Illustrations The success of a poster directly relates to the clarity of the illustrations and tables.

Self-explanatory graphics should dominate the poster. A minimal amount of text should supplement the graphic materials. Use empty space between poster elements to differentiate and accentuate these elements. Graphic materials should be visible easily from a minimum distance of 6 feet. Restrained use of 2 - 3 colours for emphasis is valuable; overuse is not.

Show no mercy when editing visual materials!

Use short sentences, simple words, and bullets to illustrate discrete points. Remove all non-essential information from graphs and tables. Lines in illustrations should be larger than normal. Use contrast and colours for emphasis. Use colours to distinguish different data groups in graphs. Avoid using patterns or open bars in histograms.

Poster text Double-space all text, using left-justification; text with even left sides and jagged right sides is easiest to read. The text should be large enough to be read easily from at least 6 feet away.

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For section headings (e.g., Introduction), use bold, maybe a font size of about 36-42. For supporting text (e.g., text within each section & figure captions), use font sizes of about 24-28 (bold, if appropriate). In general, use font sizes proportional to importance:

Largest font size- Title Next largest font size - Section headings Medium font size - Supporting material Smallest font size - Details

Keep in mind that san serif fonts are easiest to read. Choose one font and then use it throughout the poster. Add emphasis by using bold, underlining, or colour; italics are difficult to read. .

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The Poster's Background The choice of a background colour is up to you. However, softer colours (pastels & greys) may work best as a background - they are easiest to view for hours at a time, and offer the best contrast for text, graphic, and photographic elements.

Miscellaneous comments

Because a poster is a visual presentation, try to find ways to show what was done - use schematic diagrams, arrows, and other strategies to direct the visual attention of the viewer, rather than explaining it all using text alone (i.e., like the poster with way too much text below).

Design the poster to address one central question. State the question clearly in the poster, then use your discussion time with individuals to expand or expound upon issues surrounding that central theme. Provide an explicit take-home message. Summarize implications and conclusions briefly, and in user-friendly language. Give credit where it is due. Have an acknowledgments section, in smaller font size (maybe 14 - 18 point), where you acknowledge contributors and funding organizations. Vary the size and spacing of the poster sections to add visual interest, but do so in moderation. Do not wander too far away from your poster during the session; be available for discussion!

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Appendix 1 Newspaper passages

Newspaper passage 1
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Food scraps and farm waste to be chewed up to create energy

Adapted from Lewis Smith environment reporter The Times February 17, 2009

Plans to build more than 1,000 anaerobic digesters to turn unwanted food and farm waste into energy and fertiliser will be unveiled today. Anaerobic digesters break down organic waste naturally into a solid that can be used as fertiliser and a gas that can be burnt to generate heat and electricity. Jane Kennedy, the Environment Minister, will declare anaerobic digesters the solution to organic waste. She will also launch a task group with instructions to identify how many should be installed by other sectors, such as the water industry, to make anaerobic digestion a major source of renewable energy. Other countries, notably Germany, have made widespread use of anaerobic digesters, and ministers are anxious to increase the number in Britain to reduce pressure on landfill sites and to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Farms produce 90 million tonnes of waste, including manure and slurry, while a further 12 to 20 million tonnes of wasted food and food scraps go into landfill after being thrown away by households, businesses, restaurants and hotels. Ms Kennedy hopes that an agreement with the National Farmers Union and other representatives of the agriculture sector will lead to the use of 1,000 anaerobic digesters by 2020. At present there are estimated to be about 20. The digesters are expected to make many farms self-sufficient in electricity. Any excess could be passed on to the national grid. The water industry, which has to deal with 1.73 million tonnes of sewage sludge annually, is also likely to find a use for digesters. Similarly, ministers will expect businesses and local authorities to increase the quantity of food waste that goes into them. Ms Kennedy will point out that if all the organic waste in Britain were recycled in this way, enough energy would be generated to provide two million homes with heat and electricity.

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Newspaper passage 2
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Drinking tea reduces risk of stroke

Drinking three or more cups of tea a day may significantly reduce the chances of having a stroke, scientists claim.
Adapted from Richard Alleyne science correspondent The Daily Telegraph February 25, 2009

At least three cups of Indian or Chinese tea reduces the risk of a stroke by more than a fifth, according to researchers. A major study carried out by scientists at the University of California in Los Angeles found that tea could well be a powerful weapon in the fight against strokes. "By drinking three cups of tea a day, the risk of a stroke was reduced 21 per cent," said Dr Lenore Arab, professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine. Dr. Sadat Shamim, a neurologist at Baylor University Medical Centre in Dallas, added: "We're getting more hard proof that this does change things, and it does reduce the risk." Researchers say it appears black tea and green tea have similar beneficial effects and are effective because they contain cell protecting anti-oxidants., which are usually associated with fruit and vegetables and red wine. "Right now, we believe that it's the antioxidants that are in the tea," Dr Shamim said. More research is needed to determine exactly how tea affects the body, but Dr Shamim said doctors believe the compounds in tea may reduce damage to blood vessels. Tea has several other advantages because it has no side effects, is inexpensive and is easily available. Prof Arab said the effect was found in tea made from the plant Camellia sinensis, not herbs. Researchers speculate that the antioxidant epigallocatechin gallate or the amino acid Theatine in teas may be what helps. Joanne Murphy, Medical Research Liaison Officer for The Stroke Association, said: "We have known for sometime that antioxidants found in certain food and drink can help in the prevention of stroke and this research certainly furthers this thought. "However, excess caffeine intake is believed to contribute to high blood pressure, the single biggest risk factor for stroke. Therefore we recommend moderate consumption of tea as part of a health balance diet to help reduce the risk of stroke."

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Newspaper passage 3
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Britain's rarest spider saved from the brink of extinction

Ladybird spiders, Britain's rarest and most colourful spider, has been saved from extinction following a successful conservation programme.
Adapted from Louise Gray environment correspondent The Daily Telegraph February 13, 2009

The tiny spider was once a common sight on British heathland but by the early 90s there were hardly any of the insects left because of loss of habitat to development. On the only remaining area where the species survived on a Dorset heathland there were thought to be just 56 spiders left. Natural England, the Government agency in charge of conservation, took action by breeding the spiders in captivity and releasing them onto heathland around the south of the country, including Ministry of Defence land. The latest count has revealed that the Ladybird spiders, so named for the male's red hot markings during the mating season, has soared twentyfold in just 15 years. A count last year in the areas where the animals were reintroduced reported 1,000 active animals. Dr Helen Phillips, chief executive of Natural England, said the successful programme gave hope to other species under threat in the UK. She said: "Heathland habitats have become increasingly fragmented and degraded in recent decades, placing the fate of many of our species in the balance. There is nothing inevitable about this and no reason why we should simply accept biodiversity loss as an unfortunate price of 21st century life. The success of the Ladybird spider recovery programme shows what can be done and we are delighted at the very hopeful signs that England's most elusive spider is on the road to recovery."

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Newspaper passage 4
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Ladybird spider creeps back from brink of extinction

Adapted from Lewis Smith environment reporter - The Times - February 16, 2009

The ladybird spider has been dragged back from the point of extinction in Britain, naturalists claim. There were only 56 of the spiders in Britain, living on heathland in Dorset, when a breeding and reintroduction programme began more than a decade ago. The number of ladybird spiders in the wild is now thought to be more than 1,000 and Helen Phillips, chief executive of Natural England, said there were grounds for optimism that numbers would continue to increase. The success of this project marks a vital win for the biodiversity of our important heathland habitats, she added. Loss of heathland to agriculture and other developments is believed to be the prime cause of the spiders decline. Habitat conservation played a major part in the reintroduction programme. The spider is so called because during the breeding season the males abdomen turns red with black spots.

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Newspaper passage 5
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Did life begin on Earth more than once, ask scientists

Adapted from Ian Sample Science correspondent The Guardian February 15, 2009

Scientists have called for a "mission to Earth" to hunt for evidence of a second genesis that gave rise to life, but not as we know it. The variety of life on Earth is widely considered to have evolved from a single common ancestor, but it is possible that basic organisms emerged more than once, leading to multiple trees of life. Paul Davies at Arizona State University told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago that scientists should explore unusual environmental nooks and crannies on the planet and look for micro-organisms that thrive there. Any that live outside the boundaries of "normal" life could have evolved independently, he said. "We must be open to the possibility that there's more than one tree of life," Davies said. "I'm not talking about mysterious shadow beings that we can't see, but the microbial realm could contain denizens of second or subsequent genesis." Microbes account for the vast majority of life on Earth and most have never been characterised or had their genetic make-up analysed. But finding out if any of these may have emerged separately will be difficult, because all of the techniques biologists use only work for life that uses the biochemistry we are already familiar with. "We could be surrounded by little microbes intermingled with known life and be completely unaware of the fact that these could be an alternative form of life," Davies said. If life did emerge more than once on Earth, the organisms might live in deep sea vents, or in environments that are rich in arsenic, which would be highly toxic to normal life. Unusual life forms could use arsenic the same way our own bodies and other organisms use the element phosphorus. "If we could find an alternative form of life, and be sure it wasn't some bizarre new branch on the main tree of life, then we would have established this idea of a cosmic imperative that life will emerge wherever there are Earth-like conditions. I think that would be the biggest discovery in biology since Darwin. It would at a stroke show we live in a universe that's intrinsically bio-friendly and one in which we are not alone," Davies said.

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Newspaper passage 6
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Fish with four eyes can see through the deep sea gloom
Adapted from Lewis Smith environment reporter The Times January 8, 2009

A bizarre four-eyed fish has been found to use a unique system of mirrors to protect itself from being eaten in the dark depths of the sea. The brownsnout spookfish has been identified as the only backboned creature known to use mirrors rather than lenses to get images into focus. The mirrors allow the fish to detect flashes of light made by creatures in the deep in more detail than would be achieved by eyes with lenses, giving it an early warning of predators. Mirrors are better at providing focused images in the deep sea because they are more efficient in the low light levels and they avoid imperfections in images created by lenses. The brownsnout spookfish, Dolichopteryx longipes, has ordinary eyes with lenses pointing upwards, but alongside them are downward-looking eyes fitted with tiny mirrored plates. The plates, thought to be made of guanine crystals, are arranged so that the light entering the eye is reflected to a focused point on the retina, allowing the fish to see what lurks below it. In nearly 500 million years of vertebrate evolution, and many thousands of vertebrate species living and dead, this is the only one known to have solved the fundamental optical problem faced by all eyes how to make an image using a mirror, said Professor Julian Partridge, of the University of Bristol. Its an extraordinary animal. It is absolutely unique for a vertebrate. With mirrors it can make a very bright, high-contrast image. The mirrors are thought to be more efficient in the dark because they reflect more of the available light into the retina, whereas lenses absorb small quantities as the light passes through them. The mirror eyes are used to see bioluminescent light created by marine animals signalling to each other or trying to lure prey. Brownsnout spookfish were discovered 120 years ago but little was known about them until one was pulled up from 2,000-2,600ft (600-800m) during a scientific trawl in the Tonga Trench in the southern Pacific 18 months ago. It was the first live specimen to be studied by researchers.

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Newspaper passage 7
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Nearly a billion people go hungry every day can GM crops help feed them?
Adapted from Ian Sample, science correspondent The Guardian January 23, 2009

The Science Museum in London is running an exhibition until the end of May called Future Foods. It attempts to give a balanced view of the pros and cons of genetically modified crops. The panel of experts included Bob Watson, the chief scientist at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). He was joined by Tim Lang, professor of food policy at City University in London. Rodomiro Ortiz, director of resource mobilisation at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre in Mexico, completed the panel. Tim Lang spoke first and stressed that our way of producing food has to change from the post-1940s push for quantity. Yes, of course quantity is still important, he said, but water usage, environmental impact and nutritional content have to be considered now more than ever. Tim doesn't see GM as a technical fix that will put food in the mouths of the hungry. He called for public ownership of GM technology, with the transparency and distribution of benefits that comes with it. Rodomiro spoke next, describing the work his organisation is doing to genetically modify wheat to grow under drought conditions. The crops are in trials at the moment and if they are a success, similar strains of rice, maize and barley could be next. Bob Watson spoke last. He began by explaining that today the amount of food available per capita has never been higher, how costs are still low, and yet still around 900m people go to bed hungry every night. The major problem, said Watson, is not one that GM crops will solve. He stressed the need for good roads to get crops to markets, and simple technologies that will help reduce post-harvest losses in Africa, which currently stand at between 30 and 40%. "GM is a totally oversold technique," he said. The debate that followed covered some interesting ground. How can we ensure GM foods are safe when some countries do not have sufficient procedures for testing and evaluating any health issues? How do you ensure that farmers in the developing world can plant higher-yielding GM crops without becoming dangerously reliant upon a company that has the power to hike prices or withdraw seeds without notice? Though GM crops are common in many parts of the world now, they are still absent from the UK. Sir David King, the government's former chief scientist, said last year that Africa's ills are largely down to Western do-gooders who oppose GM in favour of organic food. He argued that organic food is a luxury Africa cannot afford and that modern agricultural technology is needed urgently.

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Newspaper passage 8
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Genetically modified grass 'escapes into the wild

Adapted from SEAN POULTER The Daily Mail - 09 August 2006

A genetically modified grass created in the USA for golf courses has 'escaped' into the wild, threatening to create super-weeds. The grass has been altered in the laboratory to give it an immunity to spraying with the powerful weedkiller, Round-up. It is one of a number of second-generation GM plants created by the powerful biotech industry to convince the public of the benefits of the controversial technology. The point of the modification is to allow golf clubs to spray their fairways and greens so that weeds are killed off but the grass remains green, strong and perfectly manicured. However, there are concerns that the escape of this strain of grass into the wild will fundamentally effect the natural balance of the countryside. While it could, in theory, transfer its chemical resistance to wild cousins creating super-weeds that could dominate vast areas. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is so concerned it is running its first full environmental impact assessment of a GM plant. The plant called creeping bentgrass (Agrostis stolonifera) carries a bacterial gene protecting it from the weedkiller glyphosate, which is marketed under the name of Roundup. It has been created by the Ohio-based firm Scotts in partnership with the US GM giant Monsanto. However, a team from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found that GM pollen from the grass has contaminated a vast area around a test growing site in Oregon. The team, lead by Dr Jay Reichman, found nine GM plants among 20,400 plants sampled within a three mile radius of the test site. At least one of these was 2.5 miles away. Bentgrass is a perennial so once in the wild it regrows year after year. It has many relatives in the US with which it can cross-breed or hybridise, potentially passing on the glyphosate-resistance gene to other species. This, in theory, could see the creation of so-called super-weeds which cannot be killed with conventional weedkillers. If it were to reach environmentally sensitive wildernesses or establishes itself by waterways, it might be necessary to use highly toxic weedkillers to remove it. Dr Reichman, whose study will appear in the October issue of Molecular Ecology, said: 'It's a cautionary tale of what could happen with other GM plants that could be of greater concern. 'I suspect more examples of this will show up.' A spokeswoman for the US Department of Agriculture's Biotechnology Regulatory Services, said: 'This is a perennial and has wild and weedy relatives and it's something we think we need to know the environmental impact of before it's deregulated.' While GM technology has been widely opposed in Britain, Europe and many other parts of the world, its introduction in the USA has been largely without controversy. Dr Baack said: 'I don't think people will worry about lawns and golf courses if they've not shown any worries already about GM food.'

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Appendix 2 Short comprehension passages

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Genetically modified microbes will lead to a revolution in industrial biotechnology

Adapted from The Economist, May 1st, 2004

Craig Venter, the man who led the privately funded project to sequence the human genome, is someone who likes to mix business with pleasure. And, for a geneticist whose passion is sailing, there can be few more satisfying ways of doing so than sampling genes in the Sargasso sea, near Bermuda. The samples he took there were surprising. The sea had looked as though it was the oceanic equivalent of a desert, without nutrients, and with little life apart from the Sargassum weed that gives the sea its name. But when Dr Ventner ran his sample through his newly developed method for sequencing the DNA of an entire environment, some 1.2 million new genes turned up from an estimated 1,800 species of a microbe previously unknown to science. An apparently empty sea was abounding with bacterial life. Such newly discovered genes are the raw material for the new, but rapidly developing field that makes useful chemicals via genetically modified organisms. It is part of what is known as industrial biotechnology, where cells from animals, plants and bacteria are used to generate industrially useful products. The Sargosso results, outlined last week to the World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing, in Orlando Florida, by Dr Venters colleague Karin Remington, suggest that there are a lot of useful raw materials to be found.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

Animal Farming and the Environment

Large numbers of farm animals, requiring huge quantities of feed (grown on vast areas of land using massive inputs of water, energy, fertilisers and pesticides), produce enormous amounts of waste, causing serious pollution and environmental degradation. A range of solutions are suggested: The most compassionate approach to agriculture may be what we, at the Hudson Institute, call high-yield conservation higher yield crops; higher yield pigs, chickens and cattle; higher efficiency irrigation, and higher yield tree plantations. . . Biotechnology seems to be the most promising way to ease land conflict between people and wildlife in the 21st century. (Dennis Avery, The Hudson Institute) In the UK and Europe, the way forward must be to encourage extensive animal farming and mixed farming and to make environmental protection and animal welfare a priority. This requires the end of subsidies that encourage high stocking densities and overproduction and their replacement with subsidies for environmentally friendly methods of farming. (Compassion in World Farming Trust) We can adapt by moving down the food chain: eating foods that use less water and land, and that cause far less pollution, than meat production does. In the long run, we can lose our memory of eating animals, and we will discover the intrinsic satisfactions of a diverse plant-based diet, as millions of people already have. The era of mass-produced animal flesh, and its unsustainable costs to human and environmental health should be over before the (21st) century is out. (Ed Ayres, The Worldwatch Institute)

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EU puts ban on poultry imports from Thailand

Adapted from Tobias Buck - The Financial Times- January 24/25, 2004

The European Union yesterday banned chicken imports from Thailand, in an attempt to stop the recent outbreak of avian influenza from spreading to Europe. Though the highly contagious disease, better known as bird flu, poses only a small risk to human health, Brussels fears that the disease could yet again devastate poultry farms in the Union. The speedy reaction, coming on the same day that Thai authorities confirmed that two children had contracted the disease and a chicken butcher had died from pneumonia, reflects the deep concerns of European consumers, who have over the past decade had to grapple with a string of food scares and animal health scandals. Thaksin Shinawatra, Thai prime minister, shrugged off the bans, saying they would have only a trivial impact on exports, which he expects to help the economy to grow 8 per cent this year. Gross domestic product will be hit by only 0.1 per cent and exports will be hit by 0.4 per cent, he said. Yesterdays EU decision also comes less than a year after the last European bird flu epidemic that mainly hit farms in the Netherlands, as well as in parts of Germany and Belgium. In a desperate attempt to contain the disease, the Dutch at the time ordered the slaughter of more than 30m birds, equivalent to about one in three Dutch chickens.

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Fighting hunger today could help prevent obesity tomorrow

Reducing hunger and undernourishment in pregnant women and children could prevent them from becoming overweight and obese, and reduce associated health costs, in later life, according to a study released by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The study pulls together a growing body of empirical evidence that suggests that hunger during pregnancy, programmes foetal tissues to get the most out of the food energy available, leading to overnourishment in adult life when coupled with greater food availability and a more sedentary lifestyle. Many developing countries are currently facing this situation and the impact on their health situation could be dramatic. Hunger today and more food availability tomorrow will mean that many will shift from hunger to obesity and become vulnerable to one of the related non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as diabetes and coronary heart disease. Diets today, and in the forseeable future, do not comply with dietary recommendations made by a consultation of health experts convened by FAO and the World Health Organization (WHO) last year. For example, the study says, 36 percent of all countries in the world already have populations consuming above the recommended maximum level of 300 milligrams per person a day of cholesterol, more than twice the rate of the early 1960s. Likewise, 34 percent of all countries exceed the 30% threshold of fat in the diet, compared to 18% forty years ago.

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Appendix 3 Long comprehension passages

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Zoologger: The sharpest mind in the farmyard

New Scientist 09 February 2011 by Michael Marshall

Species: Ovis aries Habitat: farms all around the world a world that they secretly run. When we look for examples of intelligent animals, certain species always leap to mind. Ourselves of course, and our close relatives the chimpanzees and other primates. Perhaps the cunning corvids crows and scrub jays with their prodigious memories and talent for deception. Dolphins and whales are pretty bright. Many would even agree that there is a sort of intelligence governing the behaviour of social insects like ants. But sheep? Sheep are just thick. Except that they aren't. Over the past few decades, evidence has quietly built up that sheep are anything but stupid. It now turns out that the humble domestic sheep can pass a psychological test that monkeys struggle with, and which is so sensitive it is used to look for neurological decline in human patients. Laura Avanzo and Jennifer Morton of the University of Cambridge were interested in a new kind of genetically modified sheep. These animals carry a defective gene that in humans causes Huntington's disease, an inherited disorder that leads to nerve damage and dementia. The hope is that the Huntington's sheep could be a testing ground for possible treatments. For that to work, they reasoned, researchers will have to be able to track changes in the cognitive abilities of the Huntington's sheep. So they decided to find out whether normal sheep could pass some of the challenging tests given to people with Huntington's. If the sheep passed, that would mean that the Huntington's sheep could be seen losing the ability as their disease progressed and maybe regaining it if any treatments worked. So Avanzo and Morton put seven female sheep through a series of increasingly tricky challenges. In one test the sheep walked into a pen that contained two buckets, one blue and the other yellow, with some food in the blue one. Over the course of a few trials they learned what was going on and always went to the blue bucket. When the researchers put the food in the yellow bucket instead, the sheep changed their behaviour accordingly. They also mastered a subtler game in which the food was still in one of the buckets but the clue to its location was the colour of a cone placed nearby, not the colour of the bucket itself. Next Avanzo and Morton stepped up the intellectual pressure, trying the sheep on intra-dimensional and extra-dimensional set-shifting. These tested the animals' ability to shift their attention, something that requires a high level of mental control. In intra-dimensional set-shifting, the sheep still had to choose a bucket based on colour, but the set of colours was different: instead of blue and yellow, the choice was purple and green. Humans find this pretty easy. Extra-dimensional shifting is harder, as the sheep had to ignore the colour of the objects and instead focus on their shapes. In a touching piece of scientific understatement, Avanzo and Morton note that their decision to do these tests "was driven more by curiosity than expectation". Humans and other primates can do set-shifting, but other large animals struggle with it although researchers have persuaded mice and rats to do it. The task relies on the prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain that is much bigger in humans than other animals. Impressively, the sheep passed the tests, learning to attend either to different pairs of colours or to the objects' shapes as necessary. As well as being good news for the study of Huntington's disease, it's one more step towards rehabilitating sheep's reputation. It really is about time we stopped making fun of sheep. They can not only recognise, especially sheep they are socially close to they can remember significant others for at least two years. They can also discriminate breeds, preferring to look at their own. What's more, there is evidence that they can group plants by family and memorise. They have sophisticated social lives too: rams become long-term buddies and stick up for each other in fights. There are even claims that sheep in the UK have learned to cross cattle grids by rolling across them, but further research may be needed on that point.

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Pollution-trawling voyage finds ocean's plastic 'soup'

New Scientist 25 March 2011 by Ferris Jabr

If you trawl a fine mesh net through any of the globe's five subtropical gyres giant ocean vortexes where currents converge and swirl unhurriedly you will haul on deck a muddle of brown planktonic goop, the occasional fish, squid or Portuguese man-of-war and, almost certainly, a generous sprinkling of colourful plastic particles, each no larger than your fingernail. Every flake of plastic cup or shard of toothbrush handle is a sponge for persistent organic pollutants (POPs) potentially hazardous compounds that do not degrade easily and cling to any hard surface they find. The fate of all this plastic determines not only the health of marine life, but also our own; if fish are feasting on these toxic morsels, then we probably are too. Last month researchers from the 5 Gyres Institute in Santa Monica, California, and the Algalita Marine Research Foundation in Long Beach, California, sailed into Piripolis, Uruguay. They had just completed the third leg of the first expedition ever to study plastic pollution in the South Atlantic subtropical gyre. In every single trawl, the team discovered plastic. "This issue has only recently come to the public's attention," says Anna Cummins, co-founder of 5 Gyres. "We're trying to document the issue and get baseline information because there is so little data." There are still significant gaps in the data the crew can collect, however. The nets that they use cannot capture plastic particles that are smaller than one-third of a millimetre across. "After a certain size these particles just disappear," says Cummins. "What is their ultimate state? They could very well break down to a size where they are ingested by fish." Cummins also explains that trawling gathers plastic particles from surface waters only. Different kinds of plastic may be suspended at different depths a dreadful rainbow of rubbish spanning the ocean from top to bottom but no one has done the research to find out. What 5 Gyres researchers are currently investigating, however, is whether surface-feeding fish are ingesting plastic and if so, what that does to them. Chelsea Rochman, who studies marine ecology and ecotoxicology at San Diego State University in California, joined the 5 Gyres team in November for a month-long trawl in the South Atlantic. In addition to sampling the water and plastic, Rochman used a special net to collect around 660 lanternfish a ubiquitous family of small bioluminescent fish that make up around 65 per cent of all deep sea fish biomass. Lanternfish inhabit the dim depths during the day, but swim to the surface at night to feed, so if any fish would have plastic in their guts, it would be these guys. Back at her lab, Rochman has started analysing the water and plastic samples for the presence of POPs. She has also started slicing open the lanternfish so she can determine if they are eating plastic and whether POPs are accumulating in their tissues. Rochman wants to see whether fish caught in highly polluted areas of the gyres have more plastic in their guts and higher levels of POPs than those taken from less polluted waters. Confirming that distinction would suggest that fish are indeed consuming toxic morsels. In another lab experiment, Rochman fed one group of fish a diet infused with plastic, and another group a plastic-free diet. Preliminary results show that the fish which ate plastic endured significant weight loss and liver damage. "We are going to look for tumours, cell death and congestion in the organs that filter toxins," she says. Plastic in the ocean would not be so worrisome if only certain areas were polluted, but it appears to travel everywhere. Worse, it's hard to pin down exactly where, say, the remains of a candy wrapper blown out to sea in China will eventually drift. One tool is providing some answers, however. For at least two decades oceanographers have deployed thousands of Lagrangian drifting buoys, which are designed to map surface ocean currents rather than wind patterns or waves. "We realised that our buoys are in fact a kind of marine debris," says Nikolai Maximenko of the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, who collaborated with 5 Gyres researchers to identify which areas of the ocean should have especially high levels of plastic pollution. Wherever the buoys gather most densely, the reasoning goes, is also where plastic particles should cluster. That is what the researchers have found so far: all our plastic waste meets and circulates in the gyrating wastes of the ocean. More surprising is that despite the lure of the gyres, the buoys and, therefore, probably plastic in general really get around. "It's amazing to see the global patterns," says Maximenko. "I just found out that one surface drifter went very close to the North Pole in summer 2009, and another made two loops around Antarctica." What researchers have established so far is that the plastic in the oceans is persistent and pervasive. Investigations into what all this pollution means for wildlife and people are just getting started, but the early signs are not reassuring. "The ocean is not infinite. It doesn't have room for our waste," says Cummins.

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Brain-computer implant has passed 1000-day milestone

New Scientist 25 March 2011 by Helen Thomson, biomedical news editor

A paralysed woman was still able to accurately control a computer cursor with her thoughts 1000 days after having a tiny electronic device implanted in her brain, say the researchers who devised the system. The achievement demonstrates the longevity of brain-machine implants. The woman, for whom the researchers use the pseudonym S3, had a brainstem stroke in the mid-1990s that caused tetraplegia - paralysis of all four limbs and the vocal cords. In 2005, researchers from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, the Providence VA Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston implanted a tiny silicon electrode array the size of a small aspirin into S3's brain to help her communicate better with the outside world. The electrode array is part of the team's BrainGate system, which includes a combination of hardware and software that directly senses the electrical signals produced by neurons in the brain which control the planning of movement. The electrode decodes these signals to allow people with paralysis to control external devices such as computers, wheelchairs and bionic limbs. In a study just published, the researchers say that in 2008 - 1000 days after implantation - S3 proved the durability of the device by performing two different "point-and-click" tasks by thinking about moving a cursor with her hand. Her first task was to move a cursor on a computer screen to targets arranged in a circle and select each one in turn. The second required her to follow and click on a target as it moved around the screen in varying sizes. Leigh Hochberg, visiting associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and director of the BrainGate trial, told the website Medical News Today: However, the device did not perform perfectly - fewer electrodes were recording useful neural signals than they did when tested six months after implantation. The researchers say there is no evidence of any fundamental incompatibility between the sensor and the brain. Instead, they believe the decreased signal quality over time can largely be attributed to engineering issues. Ongoing research means these issues are now less of a problem than they were when S3 received her implant. Speaking with Brown University's news service, lead author John Simeral, assistant professor of engineering at Brown, said that they would like to further improve the sensitivity of the device: Hochberg says that S3's implant is still working and she is still participating in trials.

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I predict a riot: Where the next dictator will fall

New Scientist 03 March 2011 by Debora MacKenzie

NO ONE saw it coming. Three months ago the rulers of Tunisia and Egypt, Libya and Bahrain seemed firmly in control. Dissent of any kind, let alone revolutionary change, was nowhere on the horizon. Now it's anybody's guess which country will be next. This is not unusual. The US military tries to predict political instability, and the results, while secret, have apparently been poor. "We have never once gotten it right," Robert Gates, US Secretary of Defense, said last week. Scientists who study mathematically complex systems claim we can do better. They are planning to study recent events to devise better ways to predict a fall. Complex systems with many interrelated variables, such as ecosystems or societies, can accumulate stresses while showing no obvious change - until they reach a point where a small stress can trigger a sudden shift to another stable state. For example, forests accumulate kindling until a spark ignites a fire. According to Yaneer Bar-Yam, who heads the New England Complex Systems Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the stresses of poverty, unemployment and an absence of government accountability built up in Middle Eastern countries with a large "youth bulge" of young adults without jobs, children or prospects. Then spiking food prices and the public suicide of one young Tunisian triggered revolution. The key to predicting regime shifts, says Marten Scheffer of the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands, is to look beyond individual behaviour to seek simple laws that describe a population's collective behaviour. Bar-Yam has previously used mathematical models to predict violence between ethnic groups. Though the system's mathematics was complex, it yielded a simple result: ethnic violence flares when enclaves are a certain size. This successfully modelled 90 per cent of recent ethnic conflicts in India, Kenya, central Asia and former Yugoslavia. With the right data we can model other social changes, he says though good social data may be hard to find. Scheffer, however, believes such data may not be necessary. "All complex systems exhibit certain symptoms before a regime shift," he says, including slower responses to small changes, and a tendency for all players to behave similarly. Bar-Yam has found this behaviour pattern in the lead-up to market crashes. Scheffer is launching research to look for such symptoms in social systems, including the Middle East. In the past, Scheffer says, analysts focused on the trigger that sparks change, rather than the underlying system. "We cannot predict the spark," he says, "but we can say when a forest has accumulated dangerous levels of kindling." Repressing revolution is not the way to achieve stability, he adds. It would be like preventing small forest fires, allowing kindling to accumulate until a big fire breaks out. But uncovering the symptoms of instability may warn societies to reform themselves before revolution happens.

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Appendix 4 Reading passages

Skimming passage
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 An extract from 'The path that led nowhere' The mist clouded Harry's view as he woke up early that morning. Looking out of his sash window, he had expected to be greeted with the promised view of rolling hills and animals grazing in the meadow below. Instead, the mist meant that he couldn't see for more than 20 metres. Harry had looked forward to his annual holiday. Working hard in the city centre, the daily grind had started to get to him and he had had little time for pleasures such as relaxation. The holiday had been booked for weeks. He had looked forward to a country retreat, far away from the hustle and bustle of work. This apartment in an eighteenth-century mansion had caught his eye as it promised exquisite cuisine, beautiful interior decor and a range of country pursuits such as clay pigeon shooting and horse riding. This Sunday morning though, many activities were cancelled due to the low-lying mist. Anxious not to let the day slip away, Harry decided that a walk through the nearby forest would enable him to relax. So he set off just after breakfast. He headed towards the forest with a small packed lunch in case the mist prevented him from returning to the mansion before lunchtime. As he walked along the path, the twigs snapped under his feet and the dew from the trees dripped on to his shoulder. Harry heard the birds sitting in the trees above him, letting him know that he wasn't alone. He had been told about a clearing in the middle of the forest that would greet him with a comfortable bench, often used in the warmer summer months. Harry thought he was heading in the right direction but, over an hour later, he still hadn't reached it. By now he was getting worried. Another hour passed...then another hour...he was still walking amongst the tall oak trees. He decided to rest and sat on a fallen tree to enjoy his lunch. Feeling better after a rest and some food, Harry continued to try to find his way back to the comfort of his holiday accommodation. Surely, he would be back there soon?

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Scanning passage
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 Beauty with Botox Botox injections are one of the most popular cosmetic treatments in the world. Celebrities like Madonna, Kylie Minogue and Liz Hurley are rumoured to be keeping the wrinkles at bay this way. Sir Cliff Richard admitted to having had the treatment and now it is an increasingly popular choice for ordinary women looking for a quick way to look younger. What is Botox? Botox is made from 'botulinum toxin', a poison produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. This bacterium causes botulism - a severe form of food poisoning. In small quantities, however, Botox merely interrupts nerve impulses to muscles in the face. Botox first began to be used in 1980 to treat many muscle disorders such as lazy eye, eye ticks and uncontrolled blinking. Cosmetic treatments were pioneered by dermatological surgeons in 1987. In small doses, Botox works by paralysing the muscles of the face which are used in frowning and raising the eyebrows. When these muscles relax, the fine lines and wrinkles smooth out. Unfortunately, when it is overdone, Botox treatment can leave the face with a lack of expression. This is reputed to have caused a problem for some actors. Armpit attack Botox is reportedly a favourite with Oscar nominees who don't want to work up a sweat on the red carpet. Some stars have injections in their armpits to paralyse the sweat glands there. This way they can receive their awards knowing they don't have sweaty patches under their arms and hand back their couture outfits unstained. How long does it last? Injections take effect about three to seven days after treatment and the effect lasts three or four months. A treatment costs roughly 200. With repeated treatments, atrophy or thinning of the muscles occurs, which produces longer lasting results. Botox may be unsuitable for use around the mouth as the muscles there are important for facial expressions and eating. Side effects Soreness or mild bruising can occur around the injection site. In rare instances patients may experience a droopy eyebrow or eyelid. Headaches can also occur. Since it is still a relatively new treatment, any possible side effects of long-term use are still unknown. Botox should only be administered by experienced and welltrained doctors or nurses. A high dose could cause poisoning, or an exaggerated effect. Botox and Bollinger Botox parties are causing concern amongst practitioners. People are receiving treatments whilst sipping champagne. The American Academy of Dermatology has warned against this practice. Alcohol and Botox do not mix well. Not only can booze intensify bruising but it can also wash the toxin away from the target muscle.

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Reading passage
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

Pulp Friction
Every second, 1 hectare of the world's rainforest is destroyed. That's equivalent to two football fields. An area the size of New York City is lost every day. In a year, that adds up to 31 million hectares -- more than the land area of Poland. This alarming rate of destruction has serious consequences for the environment; scientists estimate, for example, that 137 species of plant, insect or animal become extinct every day due to logging. In British Columbia, where, since 1990, thirteen rainforest valleys have been clearcut, 142 species of salmon have already become extinct, and the habitats of grizzly bears, wolves and many other creatures are threatened. Logging, however, provides jobs, profits, taxes for the government and cheap products of all kinds for consumers, so the government is reluctant to restrict or control it. Much of Canada's forestry production goes towards making pulp and paper. According to the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association, Canada supplies 34% of the world's wood pulp and 49% of its newsprint paper. If these paper products could be produced in some other way, Canadian forests could be preserved. Recently, a possible alternative way of producing paper has been suggested by agriculturalists and environmentalists: a plant called hemp. Hemp has been cultivated by many cultures for thousands of years. It produces fibre which can be made into paper, fuel, oils, textiles, food, and rope. For centuries, it was essential to the economies of many countries because it was used to make the ropes and cables used on sailing ships; colonial expansion and the establishment of a world-wide trading network would not have been feasible without hemp. Nowadays, ships' cables are usually made from wire or synthetic fibres, but scientists are now suggesting that the cultivation of hemp should be revived for the production of paper and pulp. According to its proponents, four times as much paper can be produced from land using hemp rather than trees, and many environmentalists believe that the large-scale cultivation of hemp could reduce the pressure on Canada's forests. However, there is a problem: hemp is illegal in many countries of the world. This plant, so useful for fibre, rope, oil, fuel and textiles, is a species of cannabis, related to the plant from which marijuana is produced. In the late 1930s, a movement to ban the drug marijuana began to gather force, resulting in the eventual banning of the cultivation not only of the plant used to produce the drug, but also of the commercial fibre-producing hemp plant. Although both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew hemp in large quantities on their own land, any American growing the plant today would soon find himself in prison -- despite the fact that marijuana cannot be produced from the hemp plant, since it contains almost no THC (the active ingredient in the drug). In recent years, two major movements for legalization have been gathering strength. One group of activists believes that ALL cannabis should be legal -- both the hemp plant and the marijuana plant -- and that the use of the drug marijuana should not be an offense. They argue that marijuana is not dangerous or addictive, and that it is used by large numbers of people who are not criminals but productive members of society. They also point out that marijuana is less toxic than alcohol or tobacco. The other legalization movement is concerned only with the hemp plant used to produce fibre; this group wants to make it legal to cultivate the plant and sell the fibre for paper and pulp production. This second group has had a major triumph recently: in 1997, Canada legalized the farming of hemp for fibre. For the first time since 1938, hundreds of farmers are planting this crop, and soon we can expect to see pulp and paper produced from this new source.

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Critical reading passage

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

Pulp Friction The forestry industry: The forestry industry makes money from cutting down trees. Therefore, they want to be able to continue to cut trees, and they want to discourage any alternative ways of producing pulp and paper. The environmentalists: The environmental lobby want to protect the forests against logging companies, so they would like to show how destructive logging is, and how valuable the forests are. The hemp farming lobby: The hemp farmers would like the fibre hemp plant to be legal so that they can grow it. They want to show how useful it is for making paper and other products, and they would like people to understand the difference between the marijuana plant and the fibre hemp plant. The marijuana legalization lobby: These people would like marijuana to be legal. They are interested in linking the fibre hemp plant with marijuana because they think it may be possible to legalize BOTH kinds of plant. They want to show how useful industrial hemp is, and at the same time, they want to convince people that marijuana is harmless. The Canadian government: The Canadian government has just legalized industrial hemp, but they want to keep marijuana illegal, so they want to show that it is dangerous. They also get lots of taxes from the forestry industry, so they do not want to restrict logging too much.

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Appendix 5 Standard reading exercise

1) Read only the title of the chosen text. What do you already know about the topic? In note form write down pieces of information you expect to find in the text. 2) Write down at least 5 key words or questions you expect to find in the text. 3) Is the text: A) an extract from a book? B) a newspaper article? C) a magazine article? D) a scientific article? E) a 4) When was it published? 5) Read through the whole text as quickly as possible. Don't worry about the words you don't understand. Now write down, in not more than 15 words, the main theme of the text. 6) Ask yourself if the text may suit the needs that made you choose it as a source of information. 7) Read through the text again trying to understand as much as you can. When you come across a word which you don't know and which you think is important for the text write it down and beside it write your idea of what it probably means. Use the dictionary only if absolutely necessary! 8) Divide the text into sections. Name the sections according to their function (e.g. introduction, main part(s), conclusion etc.) and give one content-related keyword for each. 9) Write down the main idea of each paragraph or section using one sentence only. 10) Draw a diagram or a flowchart to show how the information in the text is organized. 11) Which of the expectations/anticipations you listed in task 2 does the text meet? A) B) C) D) E)

12) What do you think of the text? Evaluate it in the light of your reading purpose. Give reasons for your evaluation.

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Appendix 6 Paraphrasing passages

1) "The Antarctic is the vast source of cold on our planet, just as the sun is the source of our heat, and it exerts tremendous control on our climate," [Jacques] Cousteau told the camera. "The cold ocean water around Antarctica flows north to mix with warmer water from the tropics, and its upwellings help to cool both the surface water and our atmosphere. Yet the fragility of this regulating system is now threatened by human activity." From "Captain Cousteau," Audubon (May 1990):17. The twenties were the years when drinking was against the law, and the law was a bad joke because everyone knew of a local bar where liquor could be had. They were the years when organized crime ruled the cities, and the police seemed powerless to do anything against it. Classical music was forgotten while jazz spread throughout the land, and men like Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie became the heroes of the young. The flapper was born in the twenties, and with her bobbed hair and short skirts, she symbolized, perhaps more than anyone or anything else, America's break with the past. From Kathleen Yancey, English 102 Supplemental Guide (1989): 25. Of the more than 1000 bicycling deaths each year, three-fourths are caused by head injuries. Half of those killed are school-age children. One study concluded that wearing a bike helmet can reduce the risk of head injury by 85 percent. In an accident, a bike helmet absorbs the shock and cushions the head. From "Bike Helmets: Unused Lifesavers," Consumer Reports (May 1990): 348. Matisse is the best painter ever at putting the viewer at the scene. He's the most realistic of all modern artists, if you admit the feel of the breeze as necessary to a landscape and the smell of oranges as essential to a still life. "The Casbah Gate" depicts the well-known gateway Bab el Aassa, which pierces the southern wall of the city near the sultan's palace. With scrubby coats of ivory, aqua, blue, and rose delicately fenced by the liveliest gray outline in art history, Matisse gets the essence of a Tangier afternoon, including the subtle presence of the bowaab, the sentry who sits and surveys those who pass through the gate. From Peter Plagens, "Bright Lights." Newsweek (26 March 1990): 50. While the Sears Tower is arguably the greatest achievement in skyscraper engineering so far, it's unlikely that architects and engineers have abandoned the quest for the world's tallest building. The question is: Just how high can a building go? Structural engineer William LeMessurier has designed a skyscraper nearly one-half mile high, twice as tall as the Sears Tower. And architect Robert Sobel claims that existing technology could produce a 500story building. From Ron Bachman, "Reaching for the Sky." Dial (May 1990): 15.

2)

3)

4)

5)

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Appendix 7 Scientific articles

Brain and Language 104 (2008) 262-269 www.elsevier.com/locate/b&l

How aging afects the recognition of emotional speech

Silke Paulmann
a

a, *

b , Marc D. Pell , Sonja A. Kotz

a,c

Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, P.O. Box 500 355, 04303 Leipzig, Germany b School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, McGill University, Montreal, Canada c Day Care Clinic of Cognitive Neurology, University of Leipzig, Germany Accepted 3 March 2007 Available online 10 April 2007

Abstract To successfully infer a speaker's emotional state, diverse sources of emotional information need to be decoded. The present study explored to what extent emotional speech recognition of 'basic' emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, pleasant surprise, sadness) difers between diferent sex (male/female) and age (young/middle-aged) groups in a behavioural experiment. Participants were asked to identify the emotional prosody of a sentence as accurately as possible. As a secondary goal, the perceptual findings were examined in relation to acoustic properties of the sentences presented. Findings indicate that emotion recognition rates difer between the diferent categories tested and that these patterns varied significantly as a function of age, but not of sex. 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Emotion; Prosody; Vocal expression; Aging; Sex

1. Introduction Communicating and understanding emotions is central to human social interactions throughout the lifespan. From the first moments of life humans express their feelings (e.g., babies scream when feeling pain, hunger, fear, or happiness). In adulthood, individuals must decode the emotional expressions of others efectively or risk a breakdown in interpersonal communication. It is therefore of major social relevance to understand how emotions are encoded and decoded and to determine which factors inuence these processes. As a contribution to this literature, the present
1

study investigated the recognition of 'basic' emotions from speech in two distinct age and sex cohorts.
Corresponding author. Fax: +49 (0)341 9940 260. E-mail address: paulmann@cbs.mpg.de (S. Paulmann). 1 In order to stay coherent with the literature available we use the term emotion ''recognition''. However, we would like to point out that several authors (e.g., Banse & Scherer, 1996) have argued that most published recognition studies may have studied discrimination processes (choosing between a limited number of response alternatives) rather than true recognition processes. However, the likelihood of participants discriminating rather than recognizing an emotion is reduced with an increasing number of response alternatives that were applied in the current study. 0093-934X/$ - see front matter _ 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.bandl.2007.03.002
*

Much of the literature on emotional expression has focused on emotional facial expression (e.g., Ekman, 1972, 1982, 1992). More recently, interest in emotional speech, by which we refer to both the verbal-semantic content and the prosodic realization of an emotional utterance, has increased (for a recent review see Juslin & Laukka, 2003). For instance, Banse and Scherer (1996) studied the recognition of emotional prosody and reported that accuracy rates varied significantly as a function of the emotion category; whereas hot anger was recognized with 78% accuracy, recognition rates for panic fear, elation, or shame were all below 40% although still larger than expected by chance (Banse & Scherer, 1996). Most studies of emotional prosody demonstrate recognition rates that are approximately four times higher than expected by chance (Pittam & Scherer, 1993), although not all emotional categories are recognized equally well. Expressions of anger and sadness are typically recognized more reliably from prosody than expressions of fear and pleasant surprise (Banse & Scherer, 1996; Johnstone & Scherer, 2000). The high recognition rates for these two emotions may be due to their distinctiveness at the acoustic level; a small literature on this topic indicates that sadness is usually expressed with low

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intensity, low speaking rate, and rather low pitch, while anger is conveyed with high intensity, fast speaking rate, and high pitch (Juslin & Laukka, 2003; Pell, 2001; Scherer, 1986; Williams & Stevens, 1972). The possibility that vocal expressions of these and perhaps other emotions are expressed in a 'universal' manner across languages is also being explored (e.g., Thompson & Balkwill, 2006). Despite the growing research interest in emotional speech there are still several open questions. For example, it is under debate to what extent vocal emotion recognition difers between male and female listeners. Evidence for possible sex diferences comes from studies on facial expression, where it has been suggested that women are more responsive to non-verbal cues than men (e.g., Briton & Hall, 1995). In addition, research on facial expression reveals perception diferences between female and male participants which might extend to emotional speech processing; young women tend to rate male faces more positively than young men (e.g., van Strien & van Beek, 2000). To date, there is less direct evidence of sex diferences in emotional speech perception. Some evidence suggests that women are better than men in identifying or discriminating emotional prosody (e.g., Bonebright, Thompson, & Leger, 1996; Schirmer, Kotz, & Friederici, 2002, 2005). Not all existing studies have reported this sex diference though (e.g., Fecteau, Armony, Joanette, & Belin, 2005; Orbelo, Grim, Talbott, & Ross, 2005; Raithel & Hielscher-Fastabend, 2004). Reasons for these diverse results are probably manifold, but varying task demands as well as the use of diferent methodologies and measurements across studies are likely candidates. Further to possible sex efects in vocal emotion recognition, it has been noted that emotional speech recognition declines with age (e.g., Allen & Brosgole, 1993; Brosgole & Weismann, 1995; Kiss & Ennis, 2001; Orbelo et al., 2005). For example, Kiss and Ennis (2001) investigated the perception of emotional prosody in sentences with and without lexical content. Their results showed that younger participants significantly outperformed older participants irrespective of the emotional category tested (Kiss & Ennis, 2001). Moreover, Orbelo and colleagues reported an advantage for comprehending both emotional and attitudinal prosody in a group of young rather than older participants (Orbelo et al., 2005). Similarly, a recent study of facial emotion recognition (Calder et al., 2003) reported that older participants showed lower recognition rates for expressions of fear and anger, although not for disgust. It is often argued that age diferences in emotional processing may not be domain specific, but rather domain general afecting, for example, attention or working memory (Filley & Cullum, 1994; Nicholas, Connor, Obler, & Albert, 1998). To reduce the potential efects of attention or working memory decline on emotional processing we thus opted to test middle-age participants in the current experiment. In comparison to previous studies in which the mean age of older participants was 75 years, our middle-aged-group comprised of participants with a mean age of 43 years.

In the context of this literature, the aim of the current study was to clarify whether emotional speech recognition difers as a function of sex and/or age. Male and female participants of two age cohorts (young and middle-aged) listened to sentences and then identified the meaning of the prosody in reference to six basic emotional categories (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, pleasant surprise, sadness) or a neutral category; the accuracy of each group was then compared. To build on previous work in the literature, we also investigated whether the recognition rates in diferent age and sex groups could be predicted by acoustic dimensions of the stimuli presented. Based on previous findings, we predicted that the ability to recognize emotional speech would decline with increasing age, showing lower accuracy rates for middle-aged as compared to young participants. The efect of sex on emotional speech recognition was less certain from the literature, although according to our design, an efect of sex on emotional speech recognition should lead to diferences for both young and middle-aged participants irrespective of their age. 2. Materials and methods 2.1. Participants Sixty-four native German speakers (age range: 18-50 years) participated in the experiment. Participants were divided into four equal age- and sex-controlled groups, resulting in two group dimensions. In the first dimension, the results of 16 young women and 16 middle-aged women were contrasted against the results of 16 young men and 16 middle-aged men (age range of both groups: 18-50 years). In the second dimension, recognition rates of emotional prosody of 16 young women and 16 young men (range 18-28 years) were compared to the performance of 16 middle-aged women and 16 middle-aged men (range: 38-50 years); (see Table 1 for mean age of participants). All participants had a similar educational background, normal or corrected-to-normal-vision, and no reported hearing impairment. 2.2. Stimulus material The stimulus material consisted of 350 syntactically similar (SVO) sentences. The verb and noun of the sentences were controlled for word letter length, syllable length, word frequency, initial sounds, and plosive consonants. Prior to
Table 1 Participant information: the table displays the mean age in years ( standard deviation) for each sex and age group individually and grouped together Participants Young Middle-aged Mean Female (years) 22.88 1.89 43.44 2.50 33.16 10.67 Male (years) 24.0 2.13 41.81 3.35 32.19 9.46 Mean (years) 23.44 2.06 42.63 3.02

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testing, sentences were grouped into one of the six basic emotional categories (anger, disgust, fear, happy, pleasant surprise, sadness) or into a semantically neutral category (50 sentences per category). Four German actors (two female, two male), two in each age cohort (young/middle-aged) were then asked to produce each sentence in the respective emotional prosody. This resulted in a total number of 1400 sentences. Sentences were taped with a video camcorder (SONY Digital Video camera Recorder MiniDV DCR-TRV60E) attached to a high-quality clip-on microphone. The video material was digitized and the voice-track was separated from the visual-track. Within the current experiment, only the voice material was tested. The voice material was digitized at a 16-bit/44.1 kHz sampling rate and the amplitudes were normalized (with CoolEdit Version 2000). 2.3. Acoustic analysis The stimulus material was acoustically analyzed using Praat (Boersma & Weenink, 2006). Primary acoustical measurements (mean pitch, intensity, duration) were entered in a series of one-way ANOVAs and results revealed significant diferences across emotional categories for mean pitch (F(6,343) = 744.18, p < 0.0001), mean intensity (F(6,343) = 1024.95, p < 0.0001), and mean duration (F(6,343) = 39.45, p < 0.0001). A discriminant analysis was performed to infer whether the stimuli contained detectable acoustic contrasts which might help listeners to correctly diferentiate the intended emotion categories. In the analysis acoustic measurements served as independent variables whereas the dependent variable was the intended emotional category. The vast majority (83.3%) of the variance was accounted for the first function described by this discriminant analysis. Pooledwithin-groups correlations between acoustics parameters and the first canonical discriminant function scores revealed that mean intensity drove the highest correlation (r = .729). Mean pitch had the largest pooled-withingroups correlation with the canonical discriminant function score (r = .809) in a second function that accounted for 15.5% of the variance. In a third function, that accounted for 1.2% of the variance, mean duration had the highest pooled-within-groups correlation with the canonical discriminant function score (r = .989). Fig. 1 illustrates how the canonical discriminant function scores for functions one and two separate the emotional categories for each sentence. As can be seen, the first two functions successfully separate sentences by emotional category. Classification results obtained from the discriminant analysis revealed that the model identified 87.1% of the sentences correctly. With the exception of disgust, the model correctly predicted category membership for all emotions above 80% correct (anger, 98%; disgust, 60%; fear, 82%; happiness, 100%; neutral, 90%; pleasant surprise, 100%; sadness, 80%).

Fig. 1. Results of a discriminant feature analysis in which the intended emotional category was predicted by three acoustic parameters (mean pitch, intensity, duration). Each sentence is plotted according to its discrimination scores for the discriminant functions 1 (highest correlation with mean intensity) and 2 (highest correlation with mean pitch).

2.4. Procedure Each participant was comfortably seated in a chair at a distance of approximately 60 cm from a computer screen with a seven-button panel placed before him/her. The sentences were presented via loudspeaker located 70 cm from the participant. The Event-related Run Time System (ERTS) (Beringer, 1993) was used to carry out the experimental task. Participants were instructed to listen to a sentence and to recognize the emotional prosodic category as quickly and accurately as possible. Secondly, participants were asked to judge the stimulus intensity as quickly and accurately as possible (results not reported here). The trial sequence was thus as follows: (1) presentation of a fixation cross for 200 ms; (2) clear screen for 100 ms; (3) acoustical presentation of a sentence with simultaneous presentation of a question mark on the screen requesting emotional prosody recognition; (4) a blank screen for 500 ms; (5) presentation of a number scale (++ + 0 ) requesting the intensity categorization; (6) inter-trial interval of 2000 ms. Response time was limited to 8000 ms to ensure spontaneous reactions. To control the length of the experiment, trials were divided into four pseudo-randomized lists (350 sentences each). In each list, all 50 sentences of each emotional category were presented; however, lists difered with respect to which speaker had articulated the sentence. Each participant was presented with one of the four lists. The presentation of each speaker in each list was balanced as closely as possible

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(12 vs. 13 sentences for each emotional category per speaker). 3. Results

emotion categories from prosody than middle-aged participants (all p < .05), except for pleasant surprise which did not difer as a function of age (p > .05) (see Fig. 2). 3.2. Error analysis

3.1. Accuracy rates 3.1.1. Descriptive statistics Overall, emotional prosody recognition was well above chance level (14%). As shown in Fig. 2, mean accuracy rates for anger and neutral vocalizations were highest, followed by disgust, sadness, and happiness. Expressions of fear and pleasant surprise were recognized the least accurately overall. 3.1.2. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) Accuracy scores for the six emotion categories (+ neutral) were submitted to a 7 2 2 ANOVA treating Afect (angry, disgust, fear, happy, neutral, pleasant surprise, sadness) as a repeated-measures factor and participant Sex (male/female) and Age (young/middle-aged) as betweensubject factors. Efect size was estimated by omega-square
2

3.2.1. Chi-square tests for error matrices Chi-square analyses for each error matrix indicated that participant errors were not equally distributed (all p > .0001). As can be seen in Table 2, listeners frequently confused pleasant surprise with happy sentences, and fearful with sad sentences. These patterns did not difer between the age and sex groups. 3.2.2. Distribution of false alarms The distribution of incorrectly recognized emotional sentences split by age is illustrated in Fig. 3. Analyses revealed that middle-aged participants made more errors than young participants. Also, the figure shows that even though errors made by the two groups had a very similar distribution, middle-aged participants chose the categories neutral and pleasant surprise more often than young participants. Additional analyses revealed that middle-aged participants did not only make more misclassifications, but they had more time-outs (i.e., no hits during the given time-frame) than young participants (251 vs. 151). 3.2.3. Discriminant analysis by age group To determine whether the overall Age efect was due to using acoustic cues diferently, errors were entered into an additional discriminant analysis. Sentences were grouped according to their most frequent misclassification; those sentences that had equally frequent misclassifications were left out of the analyses (92 sentences for young, and 67 sentences for middle-aged participants). Results revealed that errors made by all participants could not be successfully predicted by the acoustic properties of the stimuli. However, the discriminant analysis for young participants showed higher prediction accuracy (32.2%) than the discriminant analysis for middle-aged participants (19.8%). For young participants, 96.6% of the variance was accounted for by the first function described by the discriminant analysis. Pooled-within correlations between the acoustics and the first canonical discriminant function scores revealed that mean intensity had the highest correlation (r = .786). Mean pitch had the largest pooled-within correlation with the canonical discriminant function score (r = .994) in the second function which accounted for 3.4% of the variance. For middle-aged participants, 84% of the variance was accounted for in the first function described by this discriminant analysis. Pooled-within correlations between the acoustics and the first canonical discriminant function scores revealed that mean duration had the highest correlation (r = .835). There were no significant correlations between acoustics and the second function described by this discriminant analysis which accounted for 16% of the variance.

(X ), i.e., the coefcient of determination, which represents the proportion of variance in the dependent variable accounted for by the independent variable (interpreted in 2 a similar manner as r ). For between-subject designs, X efect sizes greater than 0.138 are considered large efects, indices between 0.048 and 0.138 are considered medium efects, and values between 0.0009 and 0.048 are considered small efects (c.f. Olejnik & Algina, 2003). No main efect of Sex was found (p > .05), but the Age efect was highly significant (F(1,60) = 29.74, p < .0001, 2 X = 0.31). Emotion recognition rates were generally higher in younger participants than in middle-aged participants (73.22% vs. 61.82%). The main efect of Afect was signifi2 cant (F(6,360) = 82.67, p < .0001, X = 0.39), although this was informed by a significant interaction of Age Afect (F(6,360) = 3.21, p < .05, X =20.017). Post hoc t-tests conducted for each emotion category revealed that young participants were significantly better at recognizing all

Fig. 2. Accuracy (in %) of emotional prosody recognition according to the age of participants. Bars show the correct responses for each intended emotional category and error bars represent the standard errors.

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Table 2 Error analysis: the matrix shows the confusion pattern for errors made in the emotional recognition task split by participant's age and sex Group Emotion Intended emotion Anger Middle-aged Anger Disgust Fear Happiness Neutral Pls. surp. Sadness Anger Disgust Fear Happiness Neutral Pls. surp. Sadness Anger Disgust Fear Happiness Neutral Pls. surp. Sadness Anger Disgust Fear Happiness Neutral Pls. surp. Sadness 8.84 9.34 0.51 0.88 1.90 11.03 6.92 4.90 0.31 2.20 2.27 6.41 8.14 7.73 0.51 1.39 2.28 7.88 7.61 6.47 0.31 1.70 1.89 9.51 Disgust 0.95 4.60 0 0.32 0.06 2.90 0.44 4.4 0 0.44 0.06 3.55 0.63 4.22 0 0.38 0.06 3.27 0.76 4.82 0 0.38 0.06 3.19 Fear 3.17 4.04 0.51 0.38 1.01 13.86 1.26 3.24 0.25 0.31 0.63 8.69 2.53 3.31 0.44 0.25 0.82 10.63 1.89 3.97 0.31 0.44 0.82 11.88 Happiness 0.51 1.22 0.33 7.88 44.55 0.32 0.63 0.95 0.52 3.45 50.94 0.30 0.32 0.83 0.26 5.23 46.11 0.19 0.82 1.34 0.59 6.09 49.40 0.51 Neutral 5.65 8.39 11.37 19.91 8.75 13.48 2.07 3.17 3.85 11.66 2.71 7.11 2.84 4.32 5.13 16.55 525 9.16 4.86 7.23 10.11 14.98 6.18 11.37 Pls. surp. 6.86 2.95 9.47 25.36 4.60 3.61 1.13 1.08 2.48 17.18 0.69 0.63 3.10 1.53 5.33 19.39 1.64 2.05 4.86 2.50 6.61 23.10 3.64 2.17 Sadness 1.46 3.07 13.02 0.13 0.57 0.06 0.50 2.86 19.19 0.13 0.94 0.13 0.88 3.31 18.65 01.3 1.07 0.13 1.07 2.62 13.54 0.13 0.44 0.06

Young

Female

Male

Values are the mean incorrect answers (in %).

4. Discussion The present study investigated how the combined efects of age and sex inuence emotional speech recognition. Taken together, our results confirmed that recognition accuracy rates vary significantly as a function of emotion category when listening to emotional speech. Averaging across emotions, an overall accuracy rate of 70% was obtained which is approximately five times higher than expected by chance in our task and in line with previous research (e.g., Scherer, Johnstone, & Klasmeyer, 2003). Interestingly, our findings further revealed an overall recognition advantage for young participants over middle-aged participants on this task with the exception of one emotion category (pleasant surprise). For example, we found that 37% of the sentences were classified incorrectly by middle-aged participants in contrast to only 26% classification errors by young participants. In contrast, no efects of sex on emotional speech recognition emerged from our data. These results will be discussed in sequence in the following paragraphs.
Fig. 3. The distribution of emotional error classifications across trials, split by age. Overall, 11,200 responses could be given by participants (50 sentences per emotional category seven emotional categories number of participants). The figure displays all errors for trials excluding timeouts.

4.1. Emotional speech recognition Prior to the study, acoustic analyses revealed that there were obvious diferences in pitch, amplitude, and temporal

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attributes of our emotional utterances that might help listeners to correctly classify the intended emotional category. As well, a discriminant feature analysis showed that category membership for all emotional tokens was correctly predicted by the acoustic measures in excess of 80% with the exception of disgust (which still achieved 60% correct), suggesting that the perceptual stimuli were distinct at the acoustic level. Nonetheless, even though listeners could successfully decode basic emotions from speech samples at a high level, our findings reafrm that some emotions are recognized much better than others (e.g., anger was recognized better than pleasant surprise; review Fig. 2). Studies that demonstrate how well particular emotions are recognized from speech show rather mixed findings. Some of these inconsistencies could be due to diferent presentation modalities (e.g., with/without lexical context, recognition at word/sentence level). Some emotions may be more easily recognized if lexical information is available, and there is behavioural and electrophysiological evidence that semantic information cannot be ignored even if it is not in the focus of a task (Besson, Magne, & Schon , 2002; Pell, Kotz, Paulmann, & Alasseri, 2005). Banse and Scherer (1996) argue that some emotions are recognized more poorly in sentences because of the limited ecological validity of certain expressions in a sentential context. Diferences in ranking emotional categories could also be due to biological factors which can inuence emotion recognition (e.g., detecting fear is necessary to survive, or recognizing anger is necessary to perceive potential danger; e.g., Ohman & Mineka, 2001; Ohman, 2002; Williams & Mattingley, 2006). Tasks that include emotion categories which tend to yield high confusion rates are likely to inuence the relative ranking of emotions in recognition studies. The current results illustrate that recognition errors are not randomly distributed; for example, pleasant surprise was frequently mistaken for happiness, and fear was frequently mistaken for sadness. It has been argued that emotions that are acoustically similar are often misclassified (c.f., Banse & Scherer, 1996). This may be particularly the case when the semantic context is sufciently ambiguous as to the intended emotional interpretation (e.g., confusion between pleasant surprise and happiness); this may explain some of the errors witnessed in the current study. Some researchers also argue that misclassifications frequently involve emotions of similar valence (e.g., happiness and pleasant surprise) and arousal (i.e., anger and sadness are less often confused than anger and fear; c.f., Scherer, 1986). Thus, it is likely that emotional category recognition varies between studies due to multiple reasons, such as the presentation modality, the ecological validity of stimulus materials, the diferent acoustic realization of stimuli, and possibly biological factors. 4.2. Inuence of sex on emotional speech recognition Our investigation failed to uncover significant evidence of sex-specific efects on emotional speech recognition.

In the introduction, we put forward several reasons that could explain why some research has reported sex diferences in emotional speech recognition (e.g., Briton & Hall, 1995; Bonebright et al., 1996; Grunwald et al., 1999; van Strien & van Beek, 2000), while others have not (e.g., Fecteau et al., 2005; Orbelo et al., 2005; Raithel & HielscherFastabend, 2004). Based on the broader literature, one could speculate that strong sex diferences are only detectable in young participants, and then only under certain task-related conditions; electrophysiological data gathered by Schirmer and colleagues suggest that women are primarily faster to process emotional prosody than men, but they do not necessarily engage in diferent processing strategies (e.g., Schirmer et al.,2002,2005). In addition, sex differences are not found if young participants are instructed to take emotional prosody into account when rendering perceptual judgments (Schirmer, Kotz, & Friederici, 2005). Our results are thus in line with the assumption that sex diferences only occur under implicit emotional prosody processing situations. Another possibility is that sex diferences are highly pronounced at the stage of expressing rather than recognizing emotional speech; in a recent study of emotional communication in three languages (English, German, Arabic), we noted that the sex of the speaker had a major impact on how vocal emotions were expressed, but that these diferences were recognized similarly by male and female listeners of each language (Pell et al., 2005). 4.3. The inuence of age on emotional speech recognition The present results reveal a clear decline in emotional speech recognition with increasing age. This age efect is in line with general findings on emotion perception (e.g., Brosgole & Weismann, 1995; McDowell, Harrison, & Demaree, 1994; Prodan, Orbelo, & Ross, 2007) and with particular findings on the processing of emotional prosody (e.g., Allen & Brosgole, 1993; Kiss & Ennis, 2001; Orbelo, Testa, & Ross, 2003; Orbelo et al., 2005). Based on physiological evidence, women, but also men, undergo hormonal changes around 40 to 55 years of age that can afect cognitive processes (e.g., Everhardt, Demaree, & Shipley, 2006 for a recent review). A decline in attention (Filley & Cullum, 1994) and working memory (Nicholas et al., 1998) have each been associated with increasing age. For instance, Filley and Cullum (1994) evaluated the attention of participants who were 50-69 and 70-90 years of age (Filley & Cullum, 1994) and found that sustained attention starts to decline after the age of 70, while basic attention was not afected at all. Grunwald et al. (1999) found that lexical emotion perception was associated with an age-related decline in participants 60 years or older, but not in younger participants. Given that our middleaged group was younger than most aging groups studied previously, it is unlikely that emotion recognition abilities were confounded by a reduction in other cognitive capacities, although this confound may be present in the wider literature. Rather, the efects of aging on our data are likely

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to be domain specific rather than domain general, i.e., due to true changes in the recognition of emotional prosody as a function of aging that appear to demonstrate a notably ''early'' decline in middle-aged adults in the auditory modality. Age-related diferences in emotion recognition can be accounted for in several ways. First, it has been said that diferences in various cognitive domains between young and old participants may be due to specific age-related neuroanatomic changes (e.g., Filley & Cullum, 1994) and this may also be true for recognizing emotional speech. Some research suggests that emotion perception engages diferent neural networks in young and older adults (see Fecteau et al., 2005). For instance, Gunning-Dixon and colleagues (2003) investigated the inuence of age on emotional face processing using a discrimination task; their results imply that young participants rely on a diferent cortical network to discriminate emotional faces (involving visual, frontal and limbic regions) than older participants (involving parietal, temporal and frontal regions). Along similar lines, some authors have argued that emotional prosody comprehension declines in older participants due to asymmetric, age-related changes in the right hemisphere (e.g., Orbelo et al., 2005). Alternatively, age-related diferences in emotional speech recognition could result from acoustic cues being used diferently in young and older adults, a possibility that is implied by our data. Results of a discriminant analysis which attempted to predict group error patterns from acoustic properties of the stimuli showed that emotional misclassifications were better accounted for in the analysis for young participants when compared to the middle-aged participants (32.2% vs. 19.8%). Thus, it appears that the two age groups may have been using the acoustic cues of the stimuli diferently or perhaps using diferent acoustic cues altogether, for example those that were not captured by the current measures. The fact that middle-aged participants responded with a greater frequency of delays in the recognition task (as evidenced by an increased number time-outs) may constitute further evidence that the middle-aged group experienced trouble using the acoustic input to categorize specific emotions. In conclusion, our results establish that vocal expressions of the basic emotions can be recognized at levels that well exceed chance by both female and male listeners who are young or middle-aged. Although we found no evidence of sex efects in emotional speech recognition, the age of participants inuenced emotion recognition from speech samples in a significant manner. In fact, our data clearly show that emotional speech recognition begins to decline already in participants who are middle-aged, potentially for several reasons (e.g., neurophysiological changes, diferential use of acoustic cues, etc.). Future studies are needed to investigate these issues more closely by clarifying how emotional speech recognition declines in the latter half of the lifespan, preferably using a longitudinal design. Neuro-cognitive studies which spec-

ify changes in the underlying brain mechanisms that lead to a decline in emotional prosody recognition will also be valuable. Acknowledgments The authors thank Beate Gunther for help with participant recruitment, Katharina Flach for help with data acquisition, Marie Desmarteau for help with the acoustic analyses, and Dorothee Geyer for useful comments on statistical analyses. This work was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG FOR 499 to S.A. Kotz) and by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (to M.D. Pell). References
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S. Paulmann et al. / Brain and Language 104 (2008) 262-269 Johnstone, T., & Scherer, K. R. (2000). Vocal communication of emotion. In Michael Lewis & M. Jeannette Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of Emotion (2nd ed., pp. 220-235). New York: Guilford press. Juslin, P. N., & Laukka, P. (2003). Communication of emotions in vocal expression and music performance: Diferent channels, same code? Psychological Bulletin, 129(5), 770-814. Kiss, I., & Ennis, T. (2001). Age-related decline in perception of prosodic afect. Applied Neuropsychology, 8(4), 251-254. McDowell, C. L., Harrison, D. W., & Demaree, H. A. (1994). Is right hemisphere decline in the perception of emotion a function of aging? International Journal of Neuroscience, 79, 1-11. Nicholas, M., Connor, L., Obler, L. K., & Albert, M. L. (1998). Aging, language, and language disorders. In M. T. Sarno (Ed.), Acquired aphasia (pp. 413-450). San Diego, CA: Academic. Ohman, A. (2002). Automaticity and the amygdala: Nonconscious responses to emotional faces. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11, 62-66. Ohman, A., & Mineka, S. (2001). Fear, phobias, and preparedness: Toward an evolved module of fear and fear learning. Psychological Review, 108(3), 483-522. Olejnik, S., & Algina, J. (2003). Generalized eta and omega squared statistics: Measures of efect size for some common research designs. Psychological Methods, 8, 434-447. Orbelo, D. M., Grim, M. A., Talbott, R. E., & Ross, E. D. (2005). Impaired comprehension of afective prosody in elderly subjects is not predicted by age-related hearing loss or age-related cognitive decline. Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry and Neurology, 18, 25-32. Orbelo, D. M., Testa, J. A., & Ross, E. D. (2003). Age-related impairments in comprehending afective prosody with comparison to brain-damaged subjects. Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry and Neurology, 16, 44-52. Pell, M. D. (2001). Inuence of emotion and focus location prosody in matched statements and questions. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 109(4), 1668-1680. Pell, M. D., Kotz, S., Paulmann, S., & Alasseri, A. (2005). Recognition of basic emotions from speech prosody as a function of language and sex. Psychonomics, Toronto, Ontario, Abstracts of the Psychonomic Society 46th Annual Meeting, 10, pp. 97-98. Pittam, J., & Scherer, K. R. (1993). Vocal expression and communication of emotion. In M. Lewis & J. M. Havliand (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (pp. 185-198). New York: Guilford Press. Prodan, C. I., Orbelo, D. M., & Ross, E. D. (2007). Processing of facial blends of emotion: Support for right hemisphere cognitive aging. Cortex, 2, 196-206. Raithel, V., & Hielscher-Fastabend, M. (2004). Emotional and linguistic perception of prosody. Folia Phoniatrica et Logopaedica, 56, 7-13. Scherer, K. R. (1986). Vocal afect expression: A review and a model for future research. Psychological Bulletin, 99, 143-165. Scherer, K. R., Johnstone, T., & Klasmeyer, G. (2003). Vocal expression of emotion. In R. J. Davidson, H. Goldsmith, & K. R. Scherer (Eds.), Handbook of afective sciences. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schirmer, A., Kotz, S. A., & Friederici, A. D. (2002). Sex diferentiates the role of emotional prosody during word processing. Cognitive Brain Research, 14, 228-233. Schirmer, A., Kotz, S. A., & Friederici, A. D. (2005). On the role of attention for the processing of emotions in speech: Sex diferences revisited. Cognitive Brain Research, 24, 442-452. Thompson, W. F., & Balkwill, L. L. (2006). Decoding speech prosody in five languages. Semiotica, 158(1-4), 407-424. van Strien, J. W., & van Beek, S. (2000). Ratings of emotion in laterally presented faces: Sex and handedness efects. Brain and Cognition, 44(3), 645-652. Williams, M. A., & Mattingley, J. B. (2006). Do angry men get noticed? Current Biology, 16, R402-R404. Williams, C. E., & Stevens, K. N. (1972). Emotions and speech: Some acoustic correlates. The Journal of the Acoustic Society of America, 52(4), 1238-1250.

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Environ Biol Fish (2008) 83:397-405 DOI 10.1007/s10641-008-9360-8

The relative importance of orange spot coloration and total length of males in female guppy mate preference
Kenji Karino & Yoko Urano

Received: 7 May 2007 /Accepted: 22 April 2008 /Published online: 21 May 2008 # Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2008

Abstract Female mate choice by multiple male traits is an important current topic in animal behavior. However, the relative importance among the multiple cues in female choice is not explored in most cases. Female guppies Poecilia reticulata use both the color saturation of orange spots and the total length of males as mate choice criteria. In the present study, we used digitally modified video playbacks to examine the relative importance of these two male traits to female mate preferences. We initially examined the effective difference in the color saturation of orange spots as well as that in total length between two stimulus male images. Females only showed a strong preference for a bright male image (compared to the dull image) when the difference in color saturation was large (91% versus 25%). Conversely, females only exhibited a preference for larger size when they were presented a choice between two relatively small male images (total length 26.0 mm versus 23.0 mm). When two male images in which both the two traits were modified were presented to females, they prioritized male images possessing higher color

saturation of orange spots, indicating the color saturation of male orange spots to be a more important factor than the total length in their mate choice. The color saturation of orange spots may convey more reliable information about the males to the females than their total lengths. These findings imply that females may rank multiple male criteria depending on relative benefits or costs derived from their mate choice based on each criterion. . Keywords Female mate choice Sexually selected . traits . Carotenoid-based coloration Sexual selection Digitally modified videos

Introduction In many animals, females choose their mates on the basis of morphological and behavioral traits (Andersson 1994). In some cases, it has been suggested that females may obtain direct and/or indirect (genetic) benefits from their mates via their mate choice (Andersson 1994; Alatalo et al. 1998; Kokko et al. 2003). For example, males possessing preferred traits may provide more resources for the females, exhibit a greater degree of paternal care for offspring, or contribute to produce offspring with a higher genetic quality (Gwynne 1984; Knapp and Kovach 1991; Mller 1994; Qvarnstrm et al. 2000; Barber et al. 2001). Therefore, male signals that are used by

K. Karino (* :) Y. Urano Department of Biology, Tokyo Gakugei University, Nukui-kita 4-1-1, Koganei, Tokyo 184-8501, Japan e-mail: kkarino@u-gakugei.ac.jp

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females to choose mates may indicate the male's resource holding potential, parental ability, or genetic quality. It has been suggested that females assess multiple traits of males to choose their mates (Pryke et al. 2001; Candolin 2003; Grether et al. 2004b). In fishes, several studies have shown that females chose their mates assessing multiple male traits, for example the three-spined stickleback Gasterosteus aculeatus (Milinski and Bakker 1990; McLennan 2003), the guppy Poecilia reticulata (Kodric-Brown 1993; Endler and Houde 1995), and swordtails genus Xiphophorus (Rosenthal and Evans 1998; Morris et al. 2001, 2003; Fisher et al. 2006; Trainor and Basolo 2006). Each male trait often conveys different information about the males to the females (cf. Scheuber et al. 2004; Wagner and Basolo 2007). For instance, in previous studies, size of males indicated parental ability (Downhower and Brown 1980; Cte and Hunte 1989; Kolm 2002), frequent courtship displays indicated energy reserves (Knapp 1995), and conspicuous coloration indicated ability to resist parasite infection (Milinski and Bakker 1990; Houde and Torio 1992). Therefore, females may be able to obtain more detailed information about the males by assessing multiple traits than by assessing only single traits. On the other hand, the relative importance among several male traits to female mate choice may differ (Schluter and Price 1993; Fawcett and Johnstone 2003). When several male traits convey opposite information, i.e., some traits indicate that a male is in good condition, whereas other traits do not, it is possible that the females may prioritize the traits and preferentially utilize the trait that conveys the most reliable information. However, the relative importance among multiple male traits to female choice has, in many cases, not been empirically demonstrated (Wagner and Basolo 2007). In the present study, we aimed to examine the relative importance of two male traits to female mate preference in the guppy. The guppy is a live-bearing poeciliid fish that is native to the streams of Trinidad and adjacent parts of South America (Houde 1997; Magurran 2005). This fish exhibits remarkable sexual dichromatism; males assume brightly colored spots on their bodies. The mate preference of female guppies has been extensively investigated (reviewed by Houde 1997). It is well known that females choose their mates on the basis of several male traits, such as

the area and color saturation of orange spots (Houde 1987; Kodric-Brown 1989; Houde and Endler 1990; Houde and Torio 1992; Grether 2000), total length (Reynolds and Gross 1992; Karino and Matsunaga 2002), and the frequency of courtship displays (Farr 1980; Nicoletto 1993). Several studies have reported the efficacy and benefits of using digitally modified video techniques to examine female mate preferences in guppies (Nicoletto and Kodric-Brown 1999; Kodric-Brown and Nicoletto 2001; Sato and Karino 2006) and other fishes (Rosenthal and Evans 1998; Rosenthal 1999; Rowland 1999; Morris et al. 2003; Trainor and Basolo 2006). These techniques allow examination of female preference for a particular male trait by digitally manipulating only the target trait in videos of the same males. For instance, Kodric-Brown and Nicoletto (2001) have demonstrated the female mate preferences for male orange spot coloration and display rate using digitally modified videos of males with or without orange coloration and those exhibiting high or low frequencies of courtship. In this study, we examined the relative importance of male orange spot coloration and total length to female mate preference in guppies using digitally modified video playbacks. The color saturation of the orange spots of male guppies is known to be a carotenoid-dependent trait, and thus indicates their foraging ability for algae, a natural carotenoid resource (Grether 2000; Karino et al. 2007). Since algal-foraging ability is a heritable trait (Karino et al. 2005), female guppies may be able to produce offspring possessing a high algal-foraging ability by mating with males expressing bright orange spot coloration. On the other hand, by choosing males possessing large total length, females can obtain indirect benefits such as fast growth of their offspring and high reproductive output of their daughters (Reynolds and Gross 1992). However, the relative importance of male orange spot coloration and total length to female mate choice is unknown. In this study, in order to demonstrate female preferences in a dichotomous choice experiment, we initially examined the effective differences in both orange spot coloration and total lengths between two digitally modified stimulus male images that evoked a great preference of the females to colorful or larger male images. In order to clarify the relative importance between male orange spot coloration and total length

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in female choice, we subsequently examined female preference for two male video images differing in orange coloration as well as total lengths.

Materials and methods We used laboratory-reared descendants of feral guppies from the Hiji River (2643 N, 12811 E), Okinawa Island, Japan. In this population, females prefer males exhibiting large total lengths and high color saturation of orange spots (Karino and Matsunaga 2002; Karino and Shinjo 2004). The fish were housed in 40-l aquariums in a laboratory at Tokyo Gakugei University. The circulated aquarium water was maintained at 25-28C, and fish were subjected to a 12-h light/12-h dark photoperiod. They were fed newly hatched brine shrimp nauplii and commercial flake food (Tetramin, Tetra Werke, Germany) daily. To determine the average values and ranges for both orange spot patterns and total lengths among males in the natural population, we collected 55 adult males from a single site on the Hiji River in March 2005. Immediately after the collection, we recorded images of the right and left sides of the males using a digital camera (Coolpix 2500, Nikon, Japan). The males were anesthetized using a 2-phenoxyethanol solution in order to facilitate the recording. The distance between the lens of the camera and the fish was fixed at 9.5 cm, and the setup was illuminated by two 23-W white lights. For calibration, scale and color plates were displayed in the background of the fish. The recorded images of the males were transferred to a computer (iBook G4, Apple, USA) and analyzed using Photoshop CS (Adobe, USA). We measured the area of all the orange spots on both the body and tail (caudal fin) as well as total area of body and tail of each male. The values of these areas were averaged between the right and left sides of the male. The area of the orange spots was divided by the total area of the body and tail for each male to obtain the relative orange spot area (percent). We also measured the color saturation (percent) at six points in each orange spot using Photoshop CS. We calculated the average value of the six points as the score for each spot. We used the average value of all orange spots on both the right and left sides of the males as the score of the color saturation of their orange spots (see Karino and Haijima 2004 for details). In addition, we

measured the total length (the length of a male from the front of lower jaw that is most anterior part to the end of the longest caudal ray) of each male to the nearest 0.1 mm from a digital image. To produce digitally modified video images of the stimulus males, we recorded a courting male using a digital video camera (GR-DV5000, Victor, Japan). We selected a male that exhibited a relative orange spot area of 7.3%, which was similar to the average value (7.0%) of the relative orange spot area among males (n=55) in the natural habitat. The male was placed in a small aquarium (14 cm13 cm7 cm height). A female was presented to the male through a clear partition. A 60-W daylight lamp was placed 10 cm above the aquarium. The aquarium had a black background. Since males in the natural habitat often exhibited courtship displays to females with dark background such as shades of vegetation or rocks (our personal observation), the black background seemed not to affect female preference. We recorded the courting male using the digital video camera that was placed on the side of the female compartment (4 cm 4 cm7 cm height) of the aquarium. Therefore, the courtships of the male were directed toward both the female and the video camera. The digital video images were transferred to the Macintosh computer and manipulated using DVD Studio Pro 3 and Final Cut Pro HD (Apple). We chose successive frames
1

(60 s in length, 30 frames s ) of the behavioral sequences of the male in which the male exhibited typical sigmoid courtship displays (Houde 1997). We also recorded the empty aquarium using the video camera and used this recording as a blank image. Experiment 1: test of effective differences To examine the effective differences in orange spot coloration with respect to female preference, we manipulated the color saturation of the orange spots of two otherwise identical male images. The total length of male images in the selected frames of the video was adjusted to 24.0 mm, i.e., a value identical to the average total length of males (n=55) in the natural habitat. We adjusted the total length of the male image to 24.0 mm through adjustment of the frame size. We duplicated the frames of the male image. Subsequently, we enhanced the color saturation of the orange spots in one copy (hereafter referred to as the bright male image) and reduced the color saturation in

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the other copy (the dull male image) using the color adjustment filter function of Final Cut Pro HD. Therefore, all orange spots of a male image exhibited identical color saturation such as 91%. We produced four pairs of the bright and dull male images differing in the color saturation. In the first pair, the color saturation of the orange spots of the bright male image was 91%, and that of the dull male image was 25%. These color saturation values were identical to those of the highest and lowest values, respectively, among males in the natural habitat. In the second pair, the color saturations of the two male images were 82% and 34%. The corresponding color saturations in the third pair were 74% and 42%, and those in the final pair were 66% and 50%. These digital modifications of the color saturation of the orange spots did not affect the area of orange spots and coloration of the other parts of the male images. We also modified total lengths of the two stimulus male images. The color saturation of orange spots in these male images was fixed as 58%; this was identical to the average value of the color saturation of orange spots of males in their natural habitat. We duplicated the male image, and increased the total length in one copy (hereafter, the large male image) and decreased the total length in the other copy (the small male image) through adjustment of the frame size. Therefore, sizes of the male images were entirely increased or decreased including body area and orange spot sizes, but the relative orange spot area was fixed as 7.3%. We produced three pairs of the large and small male images. In the first pair, the total length of the large male image was 30.7 mm and that of the small male image was 18.3 mm; these values were identical to those of the largest and smallest adult males, respectively, in the natural habitat. The total lengths of the large and small male images in the second pair were 28.6 and 20.6 mm, respectively. In the final pair, the total length of the large male image was 26.0 mm and that of the small male image was 23.0 mm. Since pregnant females are usually unreceptive to the courting males (Houde 1997), we selected 12 mature virgin females (ca. 4-6 months after birth) as test females. The test females were housed separately from males. Because females that matured without ever seeing males often mate indiscriminately during the first encounter with males (Houde 1997), 1 day prior to the experiment, all test females were exposed

through a clear partition to an aquarium that held 5060 adult males. This preparation results in increased selectivity among the naive, virgin females (Karino and Matsunaga 2002). Since these 12 test females were exposed to the same group of educator males, the effect of the preparation on mate preference might not differ between females. The four pairs of bright and dull male images and the three pairs of large and small male images were presented to the 12 females with random order to examine their preferences in a dichotomous choice experiment. To examine the female preference, we adopted an apparatus (Fig. 1) and procedure similar to those used in Sato and Karino (2006). We placed 2-3 cm of gravel at the bottom of the aquarium and filled it with water to a depth of 9 cm. The water temperature was maintained at 25C. Daylight lamps (15 and 20 W) were placed 10 cm above the aquarium. A dark screen was used to cover the aquarium in order to prevent disturbance. Observations were conducted through a window (5 10 cm) on the screen. A color liquid crystal display monitor (FlexScan L367, Eizo, Japan) was placed at a distance of 2 cm from one side of the aquarium (Fig. 1). The two stimulus male images were presented from the right and left sides of the monitor to the test female. An area of 612 cm in front of each male image was considered as the preference zone (Fig. 1). A small central area (width, 6 cm) was designated a neutral area and allowed us to easily judge which male image was chosen by the female.

Digitally modified image

Monitor

6 cm

18 cm 12 cm 6 cm 12 cm

Fig. 1 Apparatus used for the female mate preference test. Shaded areas within the aquarium indicate the preference zones

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A test female was introduced into the aquarium and provided a 10-min acclimation period. During the period, two blank aquarium images were presented to the female. Subsequently, a pair of stimulus male images (e.g., the bright and dull male images) was simultaneously presented to the female for 7 min. We recorded the time spent by the female within the preference zone in front of each male image during the final 5 min, i.e., the first 2 min were considered as a period of acclimation to the male images. To evaluate side bias in females, we conducted a second trial in which the same male images were presented to the same test females on the sides opposite to those in the first trial. The second trial was conducted 24 h after the first trial in order to eliminate the effect of the first trial (Sato and Karino 2006). The time spent by the female within the preference zone in both trials was combined to analyze female mate preference and side bias. Experiment 2: testing the relative importance of traits To examine the relative importance of orange spot coloration and total length of males in female preference, we modified both the saturation of orange spot coloration and the total length of the stimulus male images. We used the same frames of the male image as those used in experiment 1. We produced two pairs of the stimulus male images that exhibited different orange coloration and different total lengths. In the first pair, one male image was enhanced in both orange spot coloration (91% saturation) and total length (26.0 mm). The other male image was reduced in both orange spot coloration (25% saturation) and total length (23.0 mm). The values for color saturation of orange spots and total lengths in the stimulus male images were determined from the results of experiment 1 (see Results). In the second pair, one male image was enhanced for orange spot coloration (91% saturation) but decreased in total length (23.0 mm), while the other male image was reduced for orange spot coloration (25% saturation) and increased in total length (26.0 mm). We selected 22 mature virgin females (ca. 46 months after birth) as the test females. These females were different from the individuals used in experiment 1. One day prior to the experiment, the females were exposed through a clear partition to an aquarium holding 50-60 adult males that were the

same group as used in the preparation in experiment 1. We presented these two pairs of stimulus male images with random order to the test females and measured the time spent by the females with each male image. The apparatus and procedure for examining female preference were identical to those adopted in experiment 1. If male orange spot coloration is a more important factor than total length for female choice, we predicted that the females would prefer the male images possessing bright coloration irrespective of the total lengths of the male images. If females favor male total length over orange spot coloration, then they should prefer the male images possessing large total length irrespective of the orange spot coloration of the male images. Statistical analysis In the statistical analysis, we used the relative time spent by the females within each preference zone. The time spent by a female for each male of the pair was divided by the total time spent for both males to obtain the relative time spent by the female. Similarly, the relative time spent by the females within the preference zone on the right or left side was also calculated. The relative time spent by females for each male (or side) was arcsine-transformed before analysis. After the transformation, all data showed normal distributions (Kolmogorov-Smirnov one-sample test, P>0.9). In experiment 1, we performed two repeatedmeasures ANOVAs, one to test for the effect of color saturation of male orange spots on female preference, and one to test for the effect of male total length on female preference. The repeated-measures ANOVAs were conducted with the relative time spent by each of the 12 test females for male images as the dependent variable, different pairs of stimulus male images that exhibited different color saturation of orange spots or different total lengths as the repeated factor. In experiment 2, to clarify the relative importance between color saturation of orange spots and total length of male images, we conducted twoway ANOVA with the relative time spent by females for each male image as the dependent variable, the category of color saturation (the bright or dull male images) and that of total length (the large and small male images) as factors. We used StatView 5 (SAS Institute, USA) for the analysis.

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Environ Biol Fish (2008) 83:397-405 1 Large male image

time spent by female s

Results Experiment 1: test of effective differences Females exhibited significant preference for the bright male images over dull male images (repeated-measures ANOVA: F 1, 20 =8.8, P=0.008; Fig. 2). Withinsubjects, the effect of the male image pairs was not significant (F 3, 60 =0.02, P=0.99). The interaction between the female preference for bright male images and the difference in color saturation between the male image pairs was significant (F 3, 60 =3.0, P= 0.04). This result indicates that when the difference in color saturation of orange spots between stimulus male images was greater, the female preference for the bright male images increased (Fig. 2). Side-bias for right or left side by the females was not significant (repeated-measures ANOVA: F 1, 20 =0.8, P=0.40; within-subjects, male image pairs, F =0.03, P= 3, 60 0.99; the interaction between the side and male image pairs, F 3, 60 =0.9, P=0.42). Therefore, the female preference for male orange spot coloration can be demonstrated by using a pair comprising a bright male image exhibiting 91% color saturation and a dull male image exhibiting 25% saturation. Female preference for the large male images was not significant (repeated-measures ANOVA: F 1, 22= 1.0, P=0.34; Fig. 3). Within-subjects, the effect of the

Small male image 0.8

0.6

0.4

Relative

0.2

0 30.7 18.3 28.6 20.6 26.0 23.0 Total lengths of stimulus male images (mm) Fig. 3 The relative time spent by test females with the large and small male images in experiment 1. The values of the relative time spent by the females are arcsine-transformed. Columns represent the mean and bars represent SE

male image pairs was also not significant (F 2, 44= 0.01, P=0.99). However, the interaction between the female preference for the large male images and the difference in total length between stimulus males was significant (F 2, 44 =3.5, P=0.04). This result indicates that when the difference in total lengths between stimulus male images was decreased, the female preference for the large male images increased (Fig. 3). The female side-bias was not significant (repeated-measures ANOVA: F 1, 22 =2.0, P=0.17; within-subjects, male image pairs, F =0.1, P= 2, 44 0.89; the interaction between the side and male image pairs, F 2, 44 =0.2, P=0.85). These results indicate that a pair of large and small male images possessing total lengths of 26.0 and 23.0 mm, respectively, is the most effective to examine the female preference for male total length. Experiment 2: testing the relative importance of traits

Bright male image

Relative time spent by female s 0.8

Dull male image

0.6

0.4

0.2

91

25

82

34

74

42

66

50

Saturation of orange spots of stimulus male images (%) Fig. 2 The relative time spent by test females with the bright and dull male images in experiment 1. The values of the relative time spent by the females are arcsine-transformed. Columns represent the mean and bars represent SE

Test females exhibited a significant preference for male images possessing greater color saturation of orange spots (two-way ANOVA, F 1, 83 =29.1, P< 0.001; Fig. 4). However, the female preference for male images possessing larger total length was not significant (F 1, 83 =0.9, P=0.35). The interaction between the color saturation of orange spots and total length of stimulus males was also not significant

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403

Bright male image

Relative time spent by female s 0.8

Dull male image

0.6

0.4

0.2

Large

Small

Small

Large

Total lengths of stimulus male images

Fig. 4 The relative time spent by test females with each male image in experiment 2 in which the two stimulus male images differed in both color saturation of orange spots and total length. The color saturations of the bright and dull male images were 91% and 25%, respectively, and the total lengths of the large and small male images were 26.0 and 23.0 mm, respectively. The values of the relative time spent by the females are arcsine-transformed. Columns represent the mean and bars represent SE

(F =0.2, P=0.64). The female side-bias was not 1, 83 significant (two-way ANOVA: F 1, 83 =0.04, P=0.84; male image pairs, F =0.8, P=0.39; the interaction 1, 83 between the side and male image pairs, F 1, 83=1.4, P=0.23). These results indicate that the orange spot coloration of males is a more important factor than male total length for female preference.

Discussion The results of the present study indicate that female guppies prioritized the saturation of male orange spot coloration over total length for their mate preferences. The color saturation of the orange spots of male guppies is considered an indicator of their viability, such as swimming performance (Nicoletto 1991), strength of immune systems (Grether et al. 2004a), and the algal-foraging ability (Grether 2000; Karino et al. 2007). It is known that the intake of an algal diet enhances the color saturation of orange spots of male guppies, the growth of both sexes as well as the reproductive efficiency of females (Karino and

Haijima 2004). In addition, Grether et al. (2004a) suggested that carotenoid intake enhances the immune system in male guppies. However, algae are scarce resources for guppies in certain circumstances (Grether et al. 1999; Karino et al. 2007). Since the algal-foraging ability is a heritable trait (Karino et al. 2005), the females can produce offspring possessing a higher algal-foraging ability and hence acquire greater fitness via their mate choice for the color saturation of male orange spots. Body size is also a heritable trait in guppies (Brooks and Endler 2001; Karino and Haijima 2001), and females enhance their offspring growth and reproductive output of their daughters when they mate with males possessing large total lengths (Reynolds and Gross 1992). Nevertheless, it is possible that the large total length in males may include a deceptive signal to females. Some male guppies elongate their tails in order to achieve a large total length, even though their standard lengths are small (Karino and Matsunaga 2002). By mating with these long-tailed males, females incur certain costs such as small body size and low reproductive output of their female offspring (Karino et al. 2006a). When two males possessing the same total length and different tail length are presented to female guppies, the females are unable to discriminate the long-tail male from the short-tail male without physical contact with the males (Karino and Matsunaga 2002). Therefore, the color saturation of orange spots may convey more reliable and honest information about the males than their total lengths to the females. In experiment 1, female preference for large male images was not observed when the size difference between male images was largest. This result contrasted with those of previous studies using live males (Reynolds and Gross 1992; Karino and Matsunaga 2002) in which females preferred males possessing larger total length. For example, Karino and Matsunaga (2002) have demonstrated that when the difference in total lengths between two stimulus live males was greater, females exhibited stronger preference for the larger males. One plausible explanation can be proposed for the unexpected result. It is possible that females viewed the largest male images as other females. Female guppies are often larger than males (Houde 1997). In the Hiji population, female guppies also exhibited larger total length than males (Karino et al. 2006b). Therefore, females in experiment 1 in this

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study might recognize the largest male images as other females, even though the male images exhibited malespecific traits such as orange spots. It is probable that this result was partially due to lower discriminative ability of females to male video images than live males (discussed below). In this study, the female preference for the high color saturation of male orange spots was manifest when the color saturation of the bright male image was 91% and that of the dull male image was 25%. However, a significant female mate preference in the same study population has been documented using live males, in which the average saturation of orange spot coloration of the bright males was 82% and that of the dull males was 68% (Karino and Shinjo 2004). Therefore, when digitally modified videos of males are used to examine the female preferences, a greater degree of difference in color saturation between the stimulus male images was required than when using live males. These results suggest a limitation of the digitally modified video playbacks in examining female mate preferences. Similar limitations in applying digitally modified videos to demonstrate mate preferences have previously been pointed out, including a reduction in the intensity of the reproductive behavior caused by a lack of direct interaction between the test females and stimulus video images (Nicoletto and Kodric-Brown 1999; Rosenthal 1999; Rowland 1999). However, if the effectiveness of the digitally modified video technique is verified, it may provide an excellent opportunity to examine the relative importance among multiple male traits in female mate preferences. Further studies using digitally modified videos will be required in order to examine the relative importance of other male traits in addition to orange spot coloration and total length, such as display rate and area of orange spots in the mate preferences in female guppies. This information will suggest the relative benefits or costs of mate choice for females on the basis of each male trait and has implications for the evolution of female choice based on multiple male traits.
Acknowledgements We are grateful to A. Sato for help for technical supports and field survey and to two anonymous reviewers for invaluable comments on the manuscript. This study was supported by a Grant-in-Aids (#16570012 and #19570015) to K.K. from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.

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