Feature stability, time and tempo of change, and the role of genealogy versus areality in creating linguistic diversity are important issues in current computational research on linguistic typology. This paper presents a database initiative, DiACL Typology, which aims to provide a resource for addressing these questions with specific of the extended Indo-European language area of Eurasia, the region with the best documented linguistic history. The database is pre-prepared for statistical and phylogenetic analyses and contains both linguistic typological data from languages spanning over four millennia, and linguistic metadata concerning geographic location, time period, and reliability of sources. The typological data has been organized according to a hierarchical model of increasing granularity in order to create datasets that are complete and representative.

The high failure rate of new market introductions, despite initial successful testing with traditional sensory and consumer tests, necessitates the development of other tests. This study explored the ability of selected physiological and behavioral measures of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) to distinguish between repeated exposures to foods from a single category (breakfast drinks) and with similar liking ratings. In this within-subject study 19 healthy young adults sipped from five breakfast drinks, each presented five times, while ANS responses (heart rate, skin conductance response and skin temperature), facial expressions, liking, and intensities were recorded. The results showed that liking was associated with increased heart rate and skin temperature, and more neutral facial expressions. Intensity was associated with reduced heart rate and skin temperature, more neutral expressions and more negative expressions of sadness, anger and surprise. Strongest associations with liking were found after 1 second of tasting, whereas strongest associations with intensity were found after 2 seconds of tasting. Future studies should verify the contribution of the additional information to the prediction of market success.

Traditional sensory and consumer tests predict long term consumer acceptance of new products rather poorly, as evidenced by the high failure rates of new market introductions. These tests typical reflect conscious processes whereas consumer acceptance may also be based on unconscious processes, which may be measured by implicit physiological and behavioral measures.This study with 16 children (aged 8-10 years) and 15 young adults (mean age 22 years) explored the use of selected physiological and behavioral measures of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) in the study of foods. Three liked and three disliked foods were selected for each participant and their responses were measured during the first sight of each food and when they received the instruction to either visually inspect, smell or taste the foods.The first sight of disliked foods compared to liked foods resulted in increased skin conductance responses (p = 0.05) and increased facial expressions of sadness, disgust, and angriness (p = 0.05).Skin conductance responses (SCRs) varied significantly with the type of instruction (p < 0.001), with relatively small SCRs when participants were instructed to visually inspect the foods and larger SCRs when they are instructed to taste or smell the foods.When instructed to taste the foods, children showed increased SCRs for disliked foods while young adults showed decreased SCRs (p = 0.02).Heart rate varied with instruction and age group (p = 0.03). Children showed increased heart rate when instructed to visual inspect or taste the foods and reduced heart rate they were instructed to smell them. In contrast, young adults showed reduced heart rate when instructed to visual inspect and increased heart rate with instructed to taste or smell.Finger temperature was higher for liked foods than for disliked foods, irrespective of instruction and age group (p < 0.01).It is concluded that implicit ANS and behavioral responses provide detailed information on food preferences in relation to specific food properties and phases of food sampling that may not be provided by other more explicit tests. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.