Contribution of listeners' approaching motion to auditory distance perception.

Of the several sources of acoustic information for distance perception, those arising from motion of the listener or sound source have received little attention. This motion-related information (recently called acoustic tau) is described, and experiments evaluating its utilization are presented. Accuracy and consistency at walking to the locations of briefly presented sounds were better when people listened while walking than while standing still. Manipulations of the sound to simulate shorter or longer target distances produced appropriate undershooting but not overshooting. The results indicate that people use motion-related acoustic information about distance to guide their locomotor actions, although they do not take full advantage of this information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Role of child and maternal processes in the psychological adjustment of children with sickle cell disease.

In this study, 64% of children aged 7–12 yrs with sickle cell disease were found to have a parent-reported behavior problem, and 50% met the criteria for a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-III-Revised (DSM-III-R) diagnosis based on a structured clinical interview of the child. Internalizing types of behavior problems and diagnoses were the most frequent. Support was provided for a transactional stress and coping model in delineating the processes associated with child adjustment. In particular, maternal anxiety accounted for 16–33% of the variance in mother-reported internalizing and externalizing behavior problems, respectively, and child pain-coping strategies accounted for 21% of the variance in child-reported adjustment problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predicting the shape of organic crystals grown from polar solvents

A method for predicting the shape of organic crystals grown from polar solvents is presented. The model is an improvement of the recent method developed by Winn and Doherty (A.I.Ch.E. Journal 44 (1998) 2501) for predicting the shape of organic crystals grown from solvents in which the energy of adhesion at the interfaces is dominated by dispersive forces (e.g., non-polar solvents). The principal characteristic of the new method is that it can account for the role of hydrogen donor and hydrogen acceptor atoms in forming strong bonds at the interface. This technique is a first step towards predicting the shapes of organic crystals grown from polar solvents, and has been applied successfully to predict the shape of adipic acid grown from water, and succinic acid grown from water and from propanol.     

Young children's (Homo sapiens) understanding of knowledge formation in themselves and others.

Three- and 4-yr-old children were tested for comprehension of knowledge formation. In Exp 1, 34 Ss watched as a surprise was hidden under 1 of 4 obscured cups. The experimenter then pointed to the cup. All children searched under the correct cup, but no 3-yr-olds (in contrast to most 4-yr-olds) could explain how they knew where to look. Ss then discriminated between simultaneous pointing by 2 adults, one who had hidden a surprise and one who had left the room before the surprise was hidden. Most 4-yr-olds (but no 3-yr-olds) showed clear discrimination between the adults. In Exp 2, 16 Ss were tested with procedures designed to make the source of their own knowledge more obvious, but this had no effect on performance. It is concluded that studies using very similar procedures with chimpanzees and rhesus macaques were measuring an ability (or inability) to understand how knowledge states form. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Atmospheric Chemistry of 2-Ethyl Acrolein

The atmospheric oxidation of the unsaturated aldehyde 2-ethyl acrolein, CH₂=C(C₂H₅)CHO, has been studied in laboratory experiments involving the reaction of ozone with 2-ethyl acrolein in the dark (with cyclohexane added to scavenge the hydroxyl radical), and the sunlight irradiation of 2-ethyl acrolein with NO in air. The major carbonyl products of the 2-ethyl acrolein reaction with ozone are formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, and the dicarbonyl ethylglyoxal, CH₃CH₂COCHO. Sunlight irradiation of 2-ethyl acrolein and NO led to the formation of three carbonyls (formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, and ethylglyoxal) and three peroxyacyl nitrates, (RC(O)OONO₂), including PAN (R = CH₃), PPN (R = C₂H₅), and the unsaturated compound EPAN (R = CH₂=C(C₂H₅)). Mechanisms are outlined for the reactions of ozone and of the hydroxyl radical with 2-ethyl acrolein. These mechanisms are consistent with the observed carbonyl and peroxyacyl nitrate products. Thermal decomposition, a major atmospheric removal process for peroxyacyl nitrates, has been studied for EPAN. The decomposition rate of EPAN relative to that of PAN is 0.59–0.73 at 292–294 K and 1 atm of air. Atmospheric implications of these results are discussed.     

Differential effects of aging on directional and absolute errors in visuospatial memory.

Studied memory for visuospatial arrays in 28 male and 34 female healthy dextral adults (aged 20–90 yrs). 10 abstract figures were presented in each hemispace over a series of learning trials, and then delayed free recall of figure placement was obtained. Figures were misplaced significantly downward and leftward in both hemispaces. Both vertical and horizontal absolute error increased significanty with age, but no age effects on directional errors were observed. The increase in absolute error over age is consistent with decreased anterograde memory and visuospatial skills in the elderly. The directional errors are believed to result from an attentional shift toward proximal peripersonal space, in combination with attentional shifts from differential left vs right cerebral activation. Gender effects were also observed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Trajectories leading to school-age conduct problems.

The present study applied a semiparametric mixture model to a sample of 284 low-income boys to model developmental trajectories of overt conduct problems from ages 2 to 8. As in research on older children, 4 developmental trajectories were identified: a persistent problem trajectory, a high-level desister trajectory, a moderate-level desister trajectory, and a persistent low trajectory. Follow-up analyses indicated that initially high and low groups were differentiated in early childhood by high child fearlessness and elevated maternal depressive symptomatology. Persistent problem and high desister trajectories were differentiated by high child fearlessness and maternal rejecting parenting. The implications of the results for early intervention research are discussed, with an emphasis on the identification of at-risk parent-child dyads. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Speakers gaze at objects while preparing intentionally inaccurate labels for them.

When describing scenes, speakers gaze at objects while preparing their names (Z. M. Griffin & K. Bock, 2000). In this study, the authors investigated whether gazes to referents occurred in the absence of a correspondence between visual features and word meaning. Speakers gazed significantly longer at objects before intentionally labeling them inaccurately with the names of similar things (e.g., calling a horse a dog) than when labeling them accurately. This held for grammatical subjects and objects as well as agents and patients. Moreover, the time spent gazing at a referent before labeling it with a novel word or accurate name was similar and decreased as speakers gained experience using the novel word. These results suggest that visual attention in speaking may be directed toward referents in the absence of any association between their visual forms and the words used to talk about them. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)