Perceptual organization and precategorical acoustic storage.

Current views of precategorical acoustic storage (PAS) have been largely based on differences in the level of recall of terminal list items as a function of input modality and on experiments in which various types of suffixes are added to unstructured auditory lists. Experiments with grouped lists reveal that PAS can make a far more extensive contribution to serial recall. A series of four experiments investigated grouping effects in relation to existing accounts of consolidation, attentional selection, and auditory masking in PAS. Grouping effects obtained with very brief intralist pauses were inconsistent with the consolidation and masking hypotheses. Contrary to the attentional hypothesis, nontemporal grouping by voice or by spatial location was found to be as effective as grouping by extended pauses. When nontemporal methods of grouping were combined with intralist pauses, the two sets of grouping cues were no better than one, suggesting that list segmentation by pauses and by item attributes must be explained in terms of a single process. These results are discussed in the context of previous research that implies the existence of an auditory store with a capacity greater than previously attributed to PAS. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Auditory similarities associated with genetic and experimental acoustic deprivation.

In previous studies, susceptibility to audiogenic seizures has been produced in otherwise nonsusceptible mice by acoustic stress and by conductive hearing loss. Both procedures temporarily elevate the absolute threshold of the auditory evoked potential (AEP) and are maximally effective during a circumscribed period of early development. The present 2 experiments were conducted with 35 DBA/2J and 36 C57BL/6J mice. In the genetically susceptible DBA/2J mouse, AEP thresholds indicated that its auditory system was functionally less mature during this early period than that of the nonsusceptible C57BL/6J mouse. It is proposed that innate susceptibility found in the DBA/2J mouse results from auditory disuse supersensitivity during a critical developmental period, in support of the hypothesis (J. C. Saunders et al) for acoustically primed mice. The increased peak-to-peak AEP amplitudes, however, were not believed to be causally related to the audiogenic seizures. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Human sensitivity to acoustic information from vessel filling.

Acylindrical vessel's fundamental resonant frequency increases as it fills with water. In Experiment 1, observers reliably identified water level rising, falling, or not changing. In Experiment 2, observers controlled filling well using only auditory information but less well than with multimodal information. Observers controlled fills to the brim better than to a drinking level, implying anticipation of fullness. In Experiment 3, blind and blindfolded sighted observers filled vessels to the brim using only auditory information. Fills tracked vessel height and flow rate well (R?=?.93, blind; R?=?.86, sighted). Experiment 4 tested sensitivity to acoustic time-to-full (TTF), analogous to optical tau. Estimated TTF to 3 fill levels at 3 rates tracked actual TTF (group R?>?.9; individual median R?=?.82). Results supported ecological perceptual theory: Changing acoustic information affords adaptive, prospective control of vessel filling. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evaluating the sensation of nasal obstruction with acoustic rhinometry and rhinomanometry

The relationships among subjective sensation of nasal obstruction, data of rhinomanometry and acoustic rhinometry between individuals or for each individual were explored. Thirty-nine subjects with nasal obstruction problems were examined using the visual analogue scale, nasal airflow resistance (NAR), nasal minimal cross-sectional area (MCA), and nasal cavity volume (NCV). No significant correlation was found between the sensation of unilateral or bilateral nasal obstruction to NAR, MCA, or NCV. Strong correlations between MCA and NAR, and NCV and NAR were noted in this study. Another 10 healthy volunteers were investigated and correlation was studied on each individual level. Strong correlations within subject were found more commonly in persons with short-term follow-up than with the long-term follow-up group. In the present study, rhinomanometry results were compatible with acoustic rhinometry results. However describing the sensation of nasal patency with only rhinomanometric or acoustic rhinometric measurements seems still inadequate.     

Cytological changes and conjunctival hyperemia in relation to sensory eye irritation

Expression of certain variants of dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) in mammalian cells protects them from methotrexate. Retroviral transfer of the gene for such a variant DHFR into hematopoietic cells might permit selection of modified cells in vivo by antifolate administration or alleviate antifolate-induced myelosuppression in patients receiving antifolate therapy. We examined protection of cells of the human lymphoblastoid line, CCRF-CEM, transduced with variants of mouse DHFR. In transduced cells selected with G418 but not with antifolate, the variant that had arginine substituted for leucine 22 did not protect against either methotrexate or trimetrexate; however, four other variants did offer protection, with the best having leucine 22 changed to tyrosine. Polyclonal cultures transduced with the different variants express DHFR at about the same level, but clones within each polyclonal population differ in DHFR expression levels and in resistance. These differences in expression were shown to reflect different integration sites for proviral DNA. Exposure to trimetrexate selects highly resistant clones, with high expression due to both high copy number and integration sites that are favorable for expression. Differences in the resistance of cultures expressing different variants at the same level are due to differences in the catalytic activity of the expressed DHFR, its affinity for antifolates, and its stability.     

Provision of confidentiality information and its relation to child abuse reporting.

A study of 204 psychologists in Minnesota, Missouri, and Kansas, representing a survey response rate of 59.6%, indicated that respondents were inconsistent in their procedures for informing clients of confidentiality limits. The hypothesis that these procedures are related to child abuse reporting tendencies was partially supported. Although within-session (within-vignette) manipulation of the confidentiality information provided did not influence reporting tendency, the results indicated that clinicians who typically provided more frequent and more specific information about confidentiality limits were also more likely to report abuse presented in a vignette. In addition, clinicians' certainty of abuse, reporting history, and theoretical orientation were related to reporting tendency. Findings suggest the need to reassert the importance of the consistent provision of detailed information about confidentiality limits to clients early in therapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Auditory stream segregation by musical timbre: Effects of static and dynamic acoustic attributes.

Two experiments examined the influence of timbre on auditory stream segregation. In Experiment 1, listeners heard sequences of orchestral tones equated for pitch and loudness, and they rated how strongly the instruments segregated. Multidimensional scaling analyses of these ratings revealed that segregation was based on the static and dynamic acoustic attributes that influenced similarity judgments in a previous experiment (P. Iverson & C. L. Krumhansl, 1993). In Experiment 2, listeners heard interleaved melodies and tried to recognize the melodies played by a target timbre. The results extended the findings of Experiment 1 to tones varying in pitch. Auditory stream segregation appears to be influenced by gross differences in static spectra and by dynamic attributes, including attack duration and spectral flux. These findings support a Gestalt explanation of stream segregation and provide evidence against a peripheral channel model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Auditory evoked potentials: Developmental changes of threshold and amplitude following early acoustic trauma.

Acoustically traumatized (primed) or sham primed 110 inbred C57BL/6J mice at 16 days of age. Auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) were subsequently determined for the inferior colliculus or medial geniculate body. Priming immediately elevated the AEP threshold by 43 db, but this shift declined to a 14-db increase within 2 days. The peak-to-peak AEP amplitude was also reduced but became larger than normal 4 days after priming. Time-dependent changes were observed in the low-intensity and high-intensity curves, and these are discussed in terms of the outer and inner hair cells of the organ of Corti. A close correspondence is noted between behavioral, electrophysiological, and anatomical observations from the primed mouse and the human with hyperrecruitment deafness. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Individual differences in perceptual information processing and their relation to automobile accident involvement.

Used a perceptual-information-processing model of driver decision making as a framework to select and devise predictors of accident involvement. 75 commercial drivers were tested in a driving simulator and were given the Embedded Figures Test, Selective Attention Test, and rod-and-frame test. The predictors of field dependence, selective attention, and complex reaction time significantly related to accident involvement. Initial, simple, and choice reaction time did not relate to accident rate. The visual measures of field dependence and the auditory measure of selective attention were related in the predicted direction, with the field-independent drivers making fewer errors in selective perception. This finding lends support to the importance of the further development of an information-processing model of the driving task. Since evidence is accumulating that stable individual differences in information processing relate to accident involvement, consideration should be given to devising techniques to develop these skills. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Coding of the acoustic information in the superior auditory centers

The internal ear may be considered analysing acoustical signals in the frequency domain. This spectral analysis appears in the auditory pathways as a place code, each neuron being activated for a narrow and well defined frequency band. But in addition to this place code, temporal information on the phase and the period of low frequency signals is preserved in the low auditory centers. In the medial geniculate body, the last relay before the cerebral cortex, the place code shows the same properties as in lower centers but with a greater diversity in the response patterns and tuning properties. The tonotopic organization is less precise and, for the pars lateralis, follows the histological lamellar organization of this region. The most lateral laminae are composed of cells responding to low frequencies, the most medial ones of high frequency cells. In the auditory cortex intracellular recordings confirm the importance of an active inhibition underlying the diverse response patterns observed. Persistance of a time code is shown by certain cells presenting responses precisely time-locked to individual clicks in a train for rates ranging from 50 to 1000 Hz. Other cells respond selectively for certain click train frequencies without marking the temporal structure of the stimuli. Thus a temporal and a place code are still both present at the cortical level for this particular kind of signals.     

Effect of acoustic confusability on levels of information processing.

Employed a modification of M. I. Posner and R. F. Mitchell's choice RT design in which 10 experimentally naive undergraduates were required to respond "same" or "different" to simultaneous pairs of letters. Response was always on the basis of name identity (e.g., AA and Aa are "same," AB is "different"). Letter pairs were selected from populations of acoustically confusable or nonconfusable letters. Each pair of letters was either physically identical, had identical names, or had different names. The RTs to physically identical pairs were fastest, and did not differ between confusable and nonconfusable pairs. For all other comparisons, RT to acoustically confusable pairs took longer than to nonconfusable pairs. Results appear to support the hypothesis of an auditory encoding stage at which comparisons between items are made on the basis of acoustic components of their memory representations. (French summary) (20 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A theory for the storage and retrieval of item and associative information.

Describes a theory in which items or events are represented as random vectors. Convolution is used as the storage operation, and correlation is used as the retrieval operation. A distributed-memory system is assumed; all information is stored in a common memory vector. The theory applies to both recognition and recall and covers both accuracy and latency. Noise in the decision stage necessitates a 2-criterion decision system, and over time the criteria converge until a decision is reached. Performance is predicted from the moments (expectation and variance) of the similarity distributions, and these can be derived from the theory. Several alternative models with varying degrees of distributed memory are considered, and expressions for signal-to-noise ratio and relative efficiency are derived. (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relation between exposure to violence and social information processing among incarcerated adolescents.

Combining evidence from social learning theory with reports of the association between community violence exposure and aggressive behavior development, the authors examined the link between specific characteristics of violence exposure and social information-processing mechanisms (N. R. Crick & K. A. Dodge, 1994; K. A. Dodge, 1980, 1986) in a sample of highly aggressive, incarcerated adolescent boys (N?=?110). Results demonstrated that victimization by severe violence was significantly related to approval of aggression as a social response, problems with the interpretation of social cues, and maladaptive social goals. Witnessing severe violence, in contrast, was related to perceived positive outcomes for the use of aggression. These data suggest the importance of examining the severity and modality of exposure to community violence for understanding patterns of social–cognitive functioning among adolescents exposed to violence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Physical growth of children in relation to the size of the settlement

A retrospective comparison of twelve patients with radial nerve transection treated by nerce repair, and thirteen similar patients treated by tendon transfer only, showed an average time to recovery of 7.5 months after nerve repair, and eight weeks after transfer. In view of this, a policy of early tendon transfer instead of radial nerve suture is advised. Results are reported in nine patients who had tendon transfers at an average of thirteen days after nerve injury.     

The role of information about the response-outcome relation in instrumental discrimination learning.

In 4 instrumental learning experiments, the hierarchical organization among responses (R), outcomes (O), and stimuli (ST) was examined. Each experiment explored the possibility that ST becomes associated with the R–O relation by providing information about that relation. In each case, an analogy was developed to a paradigm that has been important for concluding that informational relations affect Pavlovian conditioning. Experiments 1 and 2 found an effect of the information that ST provide about the R–O relation, using paradigms analogous to blocking and contingency experiments. Experiments 3 and 4 demonstrated a similar result, using a paradigm like that of relative validity. In each case, the experiments pointed to the importance of the information that ST give about the R–O relation, rather than about the individual R and O elements. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Specificity of practice: Interaction between concurrent sensory information and terminal feedback.

In 2 experiments, the authors investigated a potential interaction involving the processing of concurrent feedback using design features from the specificity of practice literature and the processing of terminal feedback using a manipulation from the guidance hypothesis literature. In Experiment 1, participants produced (198 trials) flexion-extension movements to reproduce a specific pattern of displacement over time with or without vision of the limb position and with 100% or 33% knowledge of results (KR) frequency. The transfer test was performed without vision and KR. In Experiment 2, the authors assessed whether sensory information processing was modulated by the amount of practice. Participants performed 54 or 396 trials under a 100% or a 33% KR frequency with vision before being transferred to a no-vision condition without KR. Results of both experiments indicated that the Vision-33% condition suffered a larger detrimental effect of withdrawing visual information than the Vision-100% condition. Experiment 2 indicated that this detrimental effect increased with practice. These results indicated the reduction in terminal feedback prompted participants to more deeply process the concurrent visual information thus reinforcing their dependency on the visual information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Characteristics of prickly lettuce seed oil in relation to methods of extraction

Samples of seed oil of prickly lettuce (Lactuca Sacriola oleifera) which had been obtained by pressing or by extracting with acetone, ethyl ether, petroleum ether or carbon tetrachloride were analysed for the following parameters: viscosity, saponification number, iodine number, thiocyanogen value, unsaponifiable matter, free fatty acids, peroxide number and fatty acid composition. The different parameters varied in part considerably in relation to the method of production (pressing or solvent extraction) and to the solvent. It is tried to interprete these relationships.     

Moderators of the relation between perceived and actual posttraumatic growth.

Although numerous studies suggest that most people report posttraumatic growth (PTG) following traumatic events, the relations between measures of self-reported PTG and actual pre- to posttrauma growth are small (Frazier et al., 2009). The purpose of the current study was to investigate moderators of the relation between perceived and actual growth. Participants were undergraduates who had experienced a traumatic event between Time 1 and Time 2 (2 months later; n = 122) and a matched no-trauma comparison group (n = 122). Participants completed self-report measures of perceived growth (Posttraumatic Growth Inventory; Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1996) at Time 2, actual growth from Time 1 to Time 2 (Frazier et al., 2009), and 4 potential moderators (i.e., distress and life satisfaction at Time 2 and neuroticism and self-esteem at Time 1 pre-event). The moderator analyses suggested that, in the trauma group, perceived growth was more strongly related to actual growth for individuals who reported less distress and more life satisfaction posttrauma. None of the 4 variables were significant moderators for the no-trauma group. Clinical and research implications are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Annoyance perception of sound and information extraction

The judgment of annoyance of distorted speech differs radically for different language groups. The results show that those who do comprehend a spoken language, base their annoyance-judgments on the informational content extracted while those who do not base it on the perceptual characteristics of meaningless sound (particularly loudness). A series of distorted German speech sounds were presented to two subject groups consisting of native Swedish and English speakers, and the results were compared with earlier results from groups of native German and Polish subjects. The 50 stimuli were generated from the very same speech signal distorted in two principle ways, either with repeated silent gaps or superimposed noise impulses. The perceived annoyance of the distorted speech was judged both by category scaling for all subject groups, and as a control for "ceiling" effects, also by magnitude estimation for the Swedish and the English subjects. There is a pronounced tendency for German subjects to judge the German speech distorted with silent gaps as more annoying than that distorted with superimposed noise impulses. In contrast, the Swedish, English, and Polish subjects judged the two German-speech distortions in reversed order with regard to annoyance. Thus for noncomprehending listeners, noise-distorted speech is more annoying but for comprehending listeners it is speech distorted by gaps. This means that impaired communication intrusiveness rather than loudness predominates in annoyance judgments from comprehending listeners.