English speakers attend more strongly than Spanish speakers to manner of motion when classifying novel objects and events.

Three experiments provide evidence that the conceptualization of moving objects and events is influenced by one's native language, consistent with linguistic relativity theory. Monolingual English speakers and bilingual Spanish/English speakers tested in an English-speaking context performed better than monolingual Spanish speakers and bilingual Spanish/English speakers tested in a Spanish-speaking context at sorting novel, animated objects and events into categories on the basis of manner of motion, an attribute that is prominently marked in English but not in Spanish. In contrast, English and Spanish speakers performed similarly at classifying on the basis of path, an attribute that is prominently marked in both languages. Similar results were obtained regardless of whether categories were labeled by novel words or numbered, suggesting that an English-speaking tendency to focus on manner of motion is a general phenomenon and not limited to word learning. Effects of age of acquisition of English were also observed on the performance of bilinguals, with early bilinguals performing similarly in the 2 language contexts and later bilinguals showing greater contextual variation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Decoding emotional messages: Influence of ethnicity, sex, message type, and channel.

Studied whether sex of sender and receiver, ethnic group of sender, positivity of affect, and communication channel would influence decoding of emotional messages. 34 male and 47 female Anglo-Australian Ss viewed videotapes of male or female Australian, British, or Italian speakers, who each presented 18 content-ambiguous messages with positive, negative, or neutral affect. Ss guessed the intended affect in each message. Analyses revealed that female encoders were better decoded than male encoders for positive and negative messages on all channels, but female decoders were more accurate than males only in the audiovisual (picture and sound) condition. Positive messages were decoded least accurately, especially when the speakers were Australian men. Although Italian men in the audiovisual condition were decoded worse than other men on neutral and negative messages, in the visual (picture only) condition, Italian men were decoded as well as other men. Italian women were decoded as accurately as other women for positive and neutral messages in both the audiovisual and visual conditions. In the audio (sound only) condition, Italian speakers of both sexes were decoded less accurately than other speakers of their sex. It is suggested that Italian accents were a distractor of decoding and that Anglo-Australian Ss paid less attention because of more negative attitudes toward male Southern European immigrants. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Language status and hemispheric involvement in reading: Evidence from trilingual Arabic speakers tested in Arabic, Hebrew, and English.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 24(6) of Neuropsychology (see record 2010-22445-001). The Arabic text appearing in the Appendix on page 254 of Table C1 did not reproduce accurately. The corrected table appears in the erratum.] This study explores the effects of language status on hemispheric involvement in lexical decision. The authors looked at the responses of native Arabic speakers in Arabic (L1 for reading) and in two second languages (L2): Hebrew, which is similar to L1 in morphological structure, and English, which is very different from L1. Two groups of Arabic speakers performed lateralized lexical decision tasks in the three languages, using unilateral presentations and bilateral presentations. These paradigms allowed us to infer both hemispheric specialization and interhemispheric communication in the three languages, and the effects of language status (native vs. nonnative) and similarity on hemispheric patterns of responses. In general the authors show an effect of language status in the right visual field (RVF), reflecting the greater facility of the left hemisphere (LH) in recognizing words in the participant's native Arabic than in their other languages. The participants revealed similar patterns of interhemispheric integration across the languages, with more integration occurring for words than for nonwords. Both hemispheres revealed sensitivity to morphological complexity, a pattern similar to that of native Hebrew readers and different from that of native English readers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Discrepant social communications.

Observed 32 children (13–42 mo old) individually in the presence of their mothers. Eight messages systematically varied between the visual and auditory channels were given by the experimenter. Some messages asked S to approach; other messages asked S to stay away. Some were congruent and others discrepant across channels. Order of presentation was counterbalanced across Ss. All Ss approached the experimenter when he unambiguously invited them with a smiling face, affirmative head nods, manual beckoning, and a pleasant tone of voice, saying, "Come here." When the experimenter's request to approach or to stay away was on one channel only, that is, was either visual or auditory, about three-fourths of the Ss conformed to it, approaching or staying away as requested. When requests were discrepant across channels, behavior was more variable, but more Ss conformed to the auditory than to the visual message. The messages constitute a Guttman scale, a unidimensional and cumulative hierarchy based on the individual patterns of responses to them. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Listening to one of two synchronous messages.

(This reprinted article originally appeared in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1952, Vol 44, 51–55. The following abstract of the original article appeared in PA, Vol 27:4865.) The writer was concerned with the possibility of answering 1 of 2 messages which start at the same point in time, but 1 of which is irrelevant. Groups of Ss were told to respond to messages which came over loud speakers if identified by specified and visual cues. 12 Ss were able to answer less than half of the messages directed to them by an auditory call sign, but their efficiency increased to about 70% when supplied with another unambiguous (visual) cue. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Category and perceptual interference in second-language phoneme learning: An examination of English /w/-/v/ learning by Sinhala, German, and Dutch speakers.

The present study investigated the perception and production of English /w/ and /v/ by native speakers of Sinhala, German, and Dutch, with the aim of examining how their native language phonetic processing affected the acquisition of these phonemes. Subjects performed a battery of tests that assessed their identification accuracy for natural recordings, their degree of spoken accent, their relative use of place and manner cues, the assimilation of these phonemes into native-language categories, and their perceptual maps (i.e., multidimensional scaling solutions) for these phonemes. Most Sinhala speakers had near-chance identification accuracy, Germans ranged from chance to 100% correct, and Dutch speakers had uniformly high accuracy. The results suggest that these learning differences were caused more by perceptual interference than by category assimilation; Sinhala and German speakers both have a single native-language phoneme that is similar to English /w/ and /v/, but the auditory sensitivities of Sinhala speakers make it harder for them to discern the acoustic cues that are critical to /w/-/v/ categorization. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developmental features of exploration.

Developmentally analyzed the exploratory patterns of 112 4–12 yr olds. Ss were presented with groups of visual patterns, songs, and toys and asked about their preference for 1 item in each group. Analysis of the Ss' preferences for both visual and auditory stimuli revealed a significant increase in preference for complexity with age. Ss' preference for a unknown toy over a known toy was influenced by the novelty of the known toy. Ss were less likely to surrender a more novel known toy; this relation became stronger with age. Analysis of Ss' exploration of novel, concealed toys indicated that older Ss were more likely to systematically examine all the toys first before returning for a in-depth appraisal of particular toys of interest. The younger Ss were more likely to be captivated by a novel toy and not to finish examining the rest of the environment. There was some evidence of a qualitative jump in development between these 2 strategies. Younger Ss were also more likely to ask an adult questions as a means of acquiring information, and Ss of all ages asked most of their questions at the beginning of the exploratory task. (9 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Need for stimulation as a source of stress response to perceptual isolation.

The study was undertaken to see if Ss who had shown a greater stress reaction to perceptual isolation could be shown to have a greater "need" for stimulation than those who were not so stressed by isolation. Ss selected on the basis of their high or low reactions to the prior isolation experiment were tested in a second 3-hr perceptual isolation situation, only this time they were given the opportunity to make an operant response which would produce random visual or auditory stimulation depending on their choice. Those previously stressed by isolation made significantly more responses for visual and auditory reinforcement than the low-stress group. All Ss responded more for visual than for auditory reinforcement. (29 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Accuracy of judging time to arrival: Effects of modality, trajectory, and gender.

Observers' accuracy in using time-to-arrival (Ta) information was examined in 4 experiments. The issues included use of visual vs acoustic Ta information, use of acoustic Ta information by blind Ss, use of Ta information controlling for velocity, and effects of angle of approach and arrival time on judgment accuracy. Visual information was used more efficiently than audiovisual and auditory information. Blind Ss used acoustical approach information as accurately as sighted Ss used visual information. Radial, oblique, and transverse orientations were used to examine effects of approach trajectory. Radial events were underestimated, whereas the more accurate transverse approach was likely to be overestimated. Oblique angle events yielded intermediate accuracies implying a spatiotemporal anisotropy. Women underestimated Ta more than did men. Possible reasons for Ss' judgment accuracy, including linear vs nonlinear optical changes and relation to spatial skills and experience, were discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Arousal and perceptual sensitivity in hypochondriacs.

Absolute auditory sensitivity and visual 2-flash fusion sensitivity were examined in 22 high- and 21 low-hypochondriasis (MMPI Hs scale and Whiteley Index, an attitude toward illness measure) scorers selected from a normal undergraduate population. Signal detection analysis was used for both the visual and auditory measures to separate the effects of criterion and actual sensitivity. Hypochondriacal Ss were significantly more sensitive on the 2-flash fusion task than nonhypochondriacal Ss. For the auditory experiment, the difference in sensitivity between hypochondriacal and nonhypochondriacal Ss was in the predicted direction but was not significant. Cluster analysis of the hypochondriasis items showed a cluster of items consistent with the concept of an arousal-based hypochondriasis. Analysis of the visual data showed this cluster to be a better predictor of visual 2-flash fusion sensitivity than the total hypochondriasis scale. (35 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Immediate and long-term recognition and generalization of advertised products as a function of age and presentation mode.

Examined 30 preschoolers' (aged 3–5 yrs), 30 kindergartners', and 30 2nd graders' immediate and long-term recognition memory for advertised products following an audio, video, or audiovisual presentation of commercials. A 3?×?3 factorial design was employed, with presentation mode (visual only, auditory only, and combined auditory and visual) and age of S as the factors. Ss recognized advertised products more often following exposure to visual or audiovisual commercial presentations than to auditory presentations. Age differences were detected for immediate and long-term product recognition. An errors analysis revealed that Ss of all 3 ages reported being exposed to nonadvertised foods that were members of the same class as the advertised products more frequently than would have been expected by chance. Findings are discussed in terms of the generalized effects of children's TV advertising. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Functional organization of the auditory cortex is different in stutterers and fluent speakers

Impaired auditory feedback has been suggested to cause stuttering, and subtle irregularities of audition have been reported in behavioural studies. To characterize processing at the auditory cortical level, we recorded neuromagnetic responses to monaural tones in nine stutterers and 10 fluent speakers while the subjects were reading silently, with mouth movements only, aloud, and in chorus with another person. The basic functional organization of the auditory cortices was found to be different in stutterers and controls. The altered interhemispheric balance in stutterers was affected by speech production, due to changes in the left auditory cortical representation, and more severely by self-paced than accompanied speech. This may lead to transient non-optimal interpretation of the auditory input and affect speech fluency.     

Development of pattern classification: Auditory-visual equivalence in the use of prototypes.

Studied the development of the relation between skills of visual and auditory pattern classification at the Grade 2, Grade 6, and adult (N?=?108) age levels using visual and auditory representations of the same abstract information. Ss were required to say whether the 2 patterns in each intramodal problem came from the same class. The questions of interest were whether pattern structure is processed independently of presentation modality and whether there is change or continuity with development in the use of visual and auditory pattern characteristics in classification. Results provide evidence of common processing of pattern class structure for the modalities, patterns, prototypes, and age range studied. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Auditory localization skills in mentally retarded children.

Measured the gross auditory and visual localization skills of 24 6–18 yr old mentally retarded Ss. Half of the Ss were selected randomly from a group of residents who had demonstrated visual discrimination skills and auditory speech discrimination skills. The other Ss were selected randomly from a group of residents who demonstrated visual discrimination skills but not auditory speech discrimination. Findings indicate that all Ss who previously demonstrated auditory speech discrimination passed the auditory localization task, and all Ss who previously failed to demonstrate auditory speech discrimination failed the auditory localization task. It is suggested that auditory localization skills may be used as an approximation to the development of auditory speech discrimination skills. (9 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Morphological structure and hemispheric functioning: The contribution of the right hemisphere to reading in different languages.

This study examined the relationship between morphological structure of languages and performance asymmetries of native speakers in lateralized tasks. In 2 experiments, native speakers of English (concatenative morphology stem plus affix) and of Hebrew and Arabic (nonconcatenative root plus word-form morphology) were presented with lateralized lexical decision tasks, in which the morphological structure of both words and nonwords was manipulated. In the 1st study, stimuli were presented unilaterally. In the 2nd study, 2 stimuli were presented bilaterally, and participants were cued to respond to 1 of them. Three different indexes of hemispheric integration were tested: processing dissociation, effects of distractor status, and the bilateral effect. Lateralization patterns in the 3 languages revealed both common and language-specific patterns. For English speakers, only the left hemisphere (LH) was sensitive to morphological structure, consistent with the hypothesis that the LH processes right visual field stimuli independently but that the right hemisphere uses LH abilities to process words in the left visual field. In Hebrew and Arabic, both hemispheres are sensitive to morphological structure, and interhemispheric transfer of information may be more symmetrical than in English. The relationship between universal and experience-specific effects on brain organization is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

EEG hemispheric asymmetry during sexual arousal: Psychophysiological patterns in responsive, unresponsive, and dysfunctional men.

Investigated patterns of EEG hemispheric asymmetry and penile tumescence in 12 sexually functional and 6 dysfunctional men. All Ss were aged 31–60 yrs. Six sexually functional Ss were responsive and 6 were unresponsive to laboratory presentations of erotic stimuli. Each S was exposed to a counterbalanced sequence of visual and auditory conditions over 2 sessions of testing. Response measures included bilateral temporal and occipital EEG amplitude integrated over 5-sec epochs, strain gauge measures of penile tumescence, and subjective estimates of arousal. Analysis of the hemispheric laterality results indicated a pattern of right-temporal activation in association with maximum tumescence responses in the high-normal Ss. In contrast, the dysfunctional Ss showed moderate tumescence in response to the visual erotic stimuli but greater right-hemisphere activation in response to the auditory erotic stimuli. These psychophysiological patterns are consistent with the literature on cerebral asymmetry and affective arousal. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of visual and auditory distractors on learning disabled and normal children's recognition memory performance.

Investigated whether distractibility in learning disabled (LD) children could be predicted on the basis of diagnosed visual and auditory learning deficits. 26 children in Grades 2–4 were classified as having visual or auditory reading disorders on the basis of the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities. They and 17 normally achieving children from the same grades performed visual and auditory recognition memory tasks with visual or auditory distractors presented on 80% of the trials. Analysis of error frequencies revealed that with distractors, Ss in the 2 LD groups made more errors and did not improve over trials as much as control Ss. However, the predicted interaction between learning disability modality and task or distractor modality did not obtain. Rather, all 3 S groups made more errors when task and distractor were in the same modality. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evaluation of linguistic variations by college students with and without head injuries.

Evaluated the impact of spoken language on listeners by examining the effects of prior head injury, speech register, and active vs passive listening among 56 head-injured (HI) and 55 non-HI undergraduates. Ss rated the degree to which they liked the speaker and also the extent to which groups of negative and positive adjectives described the speaker. There were no differences between HI and non-HI Ss in how much they liked speakers using the normal register, but non-HI Ss liked the motherese speakers more than did HI Ss. Raters liked motherese speakers less when addressed directly than when they were not being directly addressed. Regardless of listener perspective, HI Ss liked motherese speakers less and rated them more negatively than non-HI Ss. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Short-term memory processes in children with reading and arithmetic learning disabilities.

Examined the role of phonemic coding in short-term memory in 45 children with a reading disability, 38 children with a specific arithmetic disability, and 89 normal children, as measured by the Wide Range Achievement Test. Ss, aged 7–13 yrs, were administered a series of tasks that involved the visual or auditory presentation of rhyming and nonrhyming letters and either an oral or a written response. Younger Ss (7–8 yrs) with a reading disability did not show any difference between the recall of nonrhyming and rhyming letters, whereas normal Ss of the same age did. Older reading-disabled Ss (aged 9–23 yrs), like their normal counterparts, had significantly poorer recall of rhyming as opposed to nonrhyming letters. However, their overall levels of performance were significantly lower than normals. The same pattern was found with Ss with arithmetic disabilities for the visual presentation of stimuli. For the auditory presentation of stimuli, the performance of Ss with arithmetic disabilities resembled that of normals, except at the youngest ages. Whereas a deficiency in phonological coding may characterize younger children with learning disabilities, older children with learning disabilities appear to use a phonemic code but have a more general deficit in short-term memory. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Spatial and temporal congruity and auditory–visual integration in infants.

The influence of the spatial and temporal relation of auditory and visual stimuli on 6-mo-old infants' perception of these stimuli as attributes of a common object was explored in 4 studies. In Exp I, after familiarization with an object that moved in synchrony with a periodic sound coming from it, the 89 Ss associated the object and sound; they looked more at the familiar than a novel object in the presence of the familiar sound, but not in the presence of a novel sound. Exp II with 22 Ss showed evidence for association following experience in which an object and sound were spatially congruent but exhibited a form of temporal incongruity (continuous movement and periodic sound). In contrast, no evidence of auditory–visual association was shown after familiarization in which the object and sound were temporally congruent but spatially incongruent (Exp III; 21 Ss) or in which object and sound were spatially congruent but exhibited a different form of temporal incongruity (periodic movement and continuous sound; Exp IV with 23 Ss). (8 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)