The purpose of this study is to investigate how individual’s linguistic and spatial knowledge affects the training effects of ultrasound biofeedback. We also examined the influence of vowel differences on the training effect as well as the interaction between individual’s aptitude and training targets. Twenty-eight Taiwan Mandarin native speakers participated in the non-native vowel production experiment. Participants were first assessed by their phonetic awareness, phonological awareness, somatosensory acuity, production variability, and spatial reasoning. Participants were trained to produce non-native Cantonese /ɐ/ and Japanese /ɯ/, provided with ultrasound biofeedback. Cantonese /ɐ/ and Japanese /ɯ/ differ with their closest Mandarin counterparts in vowel height and frontness, respectively. The training effect for each vowel was determined by comparing the tongue postures (in ultrasound) between pre-training baseline and post-training performances. The results and findings are threefold: First, ultrasound biofeedback training in learning non-native sounds can be effective after 20 min of training. Second, more robust training effects were reported for the dimension of vowel height than vowel frontness. Last, individual aptitude indeed predicts the effectiveness of the ultrasound biofeedback training. The interaction between individual’s abilities and training targets can be modulated by common predictors, as well as by predictors that correspond to specific dimensions or are specific to those dimensions. This study highlights the relationship between ultrasound training effects and individual aptitude and at the same time provides insight with regards to the selection of training targets, the methods for magnifying training effect, and the screening test of training effect. These findings crucially lend support to both the theoretical framework of speech production and clinical as well as pedagogical application of ultrasound biofeedback.

Scopolamine is the secondary metabolite of the Datura stramonium and act as a muscarinic receptor antagonist. Previous studies showed that scopolamine caused attention and memory deficit. However, the effects of scopolamine on specific cognitive functions, such as fear learning and social recognition, remain poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate the effects of scopolamine on fear learning, social memory, and neural activity in zebrafish, providing a novel perspective on its impact on cognitive and social behaviors. Here, we used equal number of male and female zebrafish as an animal model and performed a series of behavioral tests after treatment with scopolamine (100 µM and 200 µM) for 1 h to evaluate social and cognitive functions. Treatment with scopolamine increased locomotion activity, reduced the level of anxiety in the novel tank diving test, and impaired memory retrieval in the active avoidance test. Scopolamine also increased the preference for newly introduced fish in the social recognition test. In situ hybridization of c-fos mRNA showed that scopolamine decreased the neural activity of the telencephalic regions that are crucial for social, cognitive, and memory functions. Our results demonstrate the effects of scopolamine on fear learning and social recognition in adult zebrafish.

Animals must adapt their behaviors in response to environmental stressors to enhance survival prospects. Aquatic organisms, particularly teleost fish, face unique environmental challenges, making them ideal models for studying environmental stress adaptation. While previous research on acute environmental stress acclimation provided valuable insights, it often overlooked potential sex-specific responses. Growing evidence suggests significant sexual dimorphism in physiological and behavioral responses to various environmental stressors. This emerging paradigm reveals a critical knowledge gap in our understanding of sex-specific stress acclimation strategies and their underlying mechanisms in teleost fish. To address this gap, we investigated the effects of acute ammonia exposure, a common aquatic stressor, on male and female zebrafish. We examined differential behaviors and metabolic rates between the sexes under ammonia stress and found sex-specific responses: males tended to recover aggression and reduced fighting latency without affecting outcomes, whereas females exhibited lowered oxygen consumption and reduced aggression. These findings highlight differences in acute stress adaptation strategies between males and females, contributing to a more-comprehensive understanding of sex-specific stress adaptation in aquatic environments and underscoring the importance of considering sexual dimorphism in environmental stress studies.

English-medium instruction (EMI) is a burgeoning field that has received much attention in recent years. Yet, little has been written from the standpoint of scholars who practice EMI themselves, located in contexts commonly viewed in the EMI literature and policy discourse as populated by faculty and students who are “non-native/non-L1” speakers of English and with assumed disciplinary deficiencies. What is often highlighted is a deficit view of these faculty and students: that they are linguistically and epistemically underprepared, rather than having multilingual, multicultural, and multi-epistemic assets. In the form of duoethnography, the paper explores the lived experiences of two EMI researchers/practitioners from Taiwan and Korea, one labeled local and the other international in their respective settings. Through the concept of borderlands, the paper calls for a critical content-first approach to EMI and asks scholars/practitioners to become “border-crossers” by foregrounding the multilingual reality inherent in EMI contexts.

Pei-Lin Lee serves as Clinical Associate Professor, School of Medicine, National Taiwan University; Consultant, Center of Sleep Disorder, National Taiwan University Hospital. Her current academic positions at international sleep societies include American Academy of Sleep Medicine Fellow and Co-Chair International Assembly; Asian Society of Sleep Medicine, Sleep Medicine Education Task Force committee member. Her current research focuses on the era of new technology and big data in sleep medicine; and intervention on sleep and metabolism in sleep disordered breathing.