Dynamic prototypicality effects in visual search.

In recent studies, researchers have discovered a larger neural activation for stimuli that are more extreme exemplars of their stimulus class, compared with stimuli that are more prototypical. This has been shown for faces as well as for familiar and novel shape classes. We used a visual search task to look for a behavioral correlate of these findings regarding both simple geometrical shapes and more complex, novel shape classes. The latter stimulus set enabled us to control for the physical properties of the shapes, establishing that the effects are solely due to the positions of the particular stimuli in a particular shape space (i.e., more extreme versus more central in shape space) and not to specific shape features. The results indicate that finding an atypical instance of a shape class among more prototypical ones is easier and faster than the other way around. The prototypical status of a shape in our experiment could change very quickly, that is, within minutes, depending on the subset of shapes that was shown to the participants. Manipulating the degree of familiarity toward the shapes by selectively increasing familiarity for the extreme shapes did not influence our results. In general, we show that the prototypical status of a stimulus in visual search is a highly dynamic property, depending on the distribution of stimuli within a shape space but not on familiarity with the prototype. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Physical Properties of Nutritive Shortenings Produced from Regioselective Hardening of Soybean Oil with Pt Containing Zeolite

Soybean oil was partially hydrogenated using Pt supported in microporous zeolite ZSM-5 and on mesoporous alumina at various IV. Their fatty acid and triacylglycerol composition were determined with GC and HPLC, respectively, and their physical characteristics were monitored by the slip melting point, solid fat content, melting and crystallization thermograms, polymorphism behavior, and the crystal and solid fat network formation. Both the chemical and physical properties were compared with commercial fat samples. Usage of Pt instead of Ni results in a significant reduction in trans fatty acids in the hardened fat. Moreover, the catalyst support of Pt, viz. zeolite ZSM-5 versus γ-alumina, markedly affects the TAG composition. Pt/alumina fats contain large amounts of SSS and polyunsaturates (PUFA), making them unsuitable for shortening application. Because of the (regio)selective hydrogenation property of Pt/ZSM-5, sn-2 unsaturates are hydrogenated faster, yielding an enrichment of intermediately reduced TAG. In addition, this unique fat composition shows a high nutritional added-value (high content of oleate, very low content of trans fatty acids, and low content of cholesterol-raising palmitate and myristate) and high thermal stability (very low in linolenate). Moreover, their melting characteristics perfectly match those of commercial shortenings. Pt/zeolite hardened soybean oil contains spherulitic crystals with orthorhombic β′ molecular packing, arranged in an open, flexible solid network, in accordance with their high plasticity.