A comfortable attachment for a thermistor respiration transducer

The construction of a simple thermistor respiration-transducer support assembly, which allows the monitoring of respiration in human subjects without the discomfort often associated with more traditional attachment methods, is described.     

A simple and inexpensive startle transducer with high output

A piezoelectric film material laminated to a sheet of flexible Plexiglas shows promise as a simple, high-performance startle transducer. It is an improvement over many other startle transducers because of its high output, insensitivity to vibrational and electrical artifacts, simplicity of instrumentation, and modest cost. Although discussed in terms of its application to measurement of the startle response, the material has potential for use in many situations that require a movement transducer.     

A pneumograph transducer based on a small moving-coil loudspeaker

An inexpensive pneumograph transducer is described.     

Spatial working memory activity of the caudate nucleus is sensitive to frame of reference

We used event-related fMRI to test the hypothesis that the caudate nucleus is preferentially recruited by a spatial working memory task employing egocentrically defined stimuli, which are amenable to transformation into a motor code, as contrasted with allocentrically defined stimuli, which are not. Our results revealed greater delay-epoch activity in egocentric than in allocentric trials in the caudate nucleus and trends in the same direction in the putamen and the lateral premotor cortex (PMC). Response-related activity was greater for egocentric trials in the lateral PMC. We propose that the neostriatum, possibly interacting with the PMC, may contribute to the sensory-motor transformation necessary to establish a prospective motor code (e.g., the representation of a saccade or a grasp). In addition, the PMC may participate in decision-making processes, prompted by the onset of the probe stimulus, that employ this prospective motor information. This model accounts for the empirical evidence that motor distraction disrupts spatial working memory performance.     

A simple and inexpensive transducer for quantitative measurements of penile erection during sleep

The construction of a mercury strain-gauge transducer for measuring penile erection and scoring rules for tumescence episodes are described. The gauge device has been found to be cheap, reliable, and easy to construct. It is capable of transducing changes in circumference in the penis of adults and infants, the clitoris of congenital adrenal hyperplasia patients, and the nipples of adult females.     

A simple and sensitive method for monitoring running-wheel movement

A running-wheel movement-detection method is described for use with a modified 1350 Commodore mouse and a Commodore 64, is described. The movement-detection method allows for the detection of partial revolutions and direction of movement, but requires no interface equipment. The modified running wheel is discussed as a new technique that may be useful for bridging empirical and theoretical differences between free-operant and discrete-trial runway procedures.     

A simple and sensitive method to measure timing accuracy

Timing accuracy in presenting experimental stimuli (visual information on a PC or on a TV) and responding (keyboard presses and mouse signals) is of importance in several experimental paradigms. In this article, a simple system for measuring timing accuracy is described. The system uses two PCs (at least Pentium II, 200 MHz), a photocell, and an amplifier. No additional boards and timing hardware are needed. The first PC, a SlavePC, monitors the keyboard presses or mouse signals from the PC under test and uses a photocell that is placed in front of the screen to detect the appearance of visual stimuli on the display. The software consists of a small program running on the SlavePC. The SlavePC is connected through a serial line with a second PC. This MasterPC controls the SlavePC through an ActiveX control, which is used in a Visual Basic program. The accuracy of our system was investigated by using a similar setup of a SlavePC and a MasterPC to generate pulses and by using a pulse generator card. These tests revealed that our system has a 0.01-msec accuracy. As an illustration, the reaction time accuracy of INQUISIT for a few applications was tested using our system. It was found that in those applications that we investigated, INQUISIT measures reaction times from keyboard presses with millisecond accuracy.     

A human sound transducer/reproducer: Temporal capabilities of a profoundly echolalic child

Stimulus-echo latencies of a blind, severely echolalic child were measured to assess the capabilities of spontaneous transduction/reproduction of a verbal signal. Mean offset-to-onset latencies of 270 msec and onset-to-onset latencies of 792 msec are comparable to laboratory reaction times for syllable imitation. Results are considered within the theoretical context of physiological speech, i.e., externalized exposure of a psittacine level of verbal processing divorced from semantic, syntactic, lexical and, quite probably, phonological interference.     

Rule-governed activity vs. rule-creating activity

Questioning the usual understanding of Native American religions as supernaturalistic, this study re-examines the ritual system of the Yaqui people of Arizona. First, it evaluates assumptions about the nature of religion—including God, grace, and prayer—which inform the ethnographical interpretation of Yaqui religion. Second, it reconstructs the Yaqui cosmological system and relates their complex cosmos to the traditional religious actors, the Deer Dancer and the Pascola clowns. Third it examines the master symbol, Sewa or Flower, to demonstrate that Yaqui religious logic does not correspond to the grace theory of Catholicism. Fourth, it demonstrates that flower embodies a causal system in which all religious actors, human and transcendent beings alike, achieve ritual efficacy in mutual, reciprocal acts of witnessing. Finally, the essay observes that ‘conversion’ fails to make sense of Yaqui syncretism for two related reasons. In the first place, the Yaqui neither rejected the world nor embraced a monotheism which assigns a privileged, vertical superiority to God. In the second, the Yaqui applied traditional insights deriving from the most basic realm of myth to reach an understanding that Jesus and Deer are alike powerful innocents who sacrifice themselves so that others might live. In all these ways, the essay demonstrates that the concept of the supernatural fails to explain either the traditional or the Christian sides of Yaqui religion and suggests that the same may be true for other Native American religions as well.     

Making ontology sensitive

The characteristic feature of phenomenology is the phenomenological constraint it exerts on its concepts: they should be embodied in concrete cases. Now, one might take that that possible match between concepts and the given would require some ontological foundation: as if the general determination provided by the concept should correspond to a particular piece of given to be found in the object itself as an abstract ??moment??. Phenomenology would then call for an ontology of abstract particulars. Against such view, the author advocates that such ontological foundation is flawed in principle, and that phenomenology as such does not call for any particular ontology: phenomenology rather introduces some kind of phenomenological constraint on the very way of ontological analysis. In order to determine what one can say to be in particular circumstances, one has to consider what one usually says to be in that kind of circumstances: on this alternative view, ontology rests on examples, as paradigmatic applications of concepts. The phenomenological move consists in disclosing how the very content of concepts depends on the ways they are applied, rather than what would be supposed to ??correspond?? to them would depend on their alleged content??as if the latter was independent of any previous connection with the given.     

A sensitive period for the acquisition of a nonnative phonological system

Immigrants who had learned English at various ages and who had been in the United States for various amounts of time were judged for degree of accent in English. It was found that age at arrival was a strong predictor of degree of accent, while length of stay had very little effect. Other practice and motivational factors were related to accent only by virtue of their correlation with age at arrival. It was suggested that a sensitive period exists for the acquisition of a nonnative phonological system.This article was adapted from a doctoral dissertation for the Department of Psychology and Social Relations, Harvard University, 1973 (unpublished), which was supported by NSF Grant No. GS-36263 and the Radcliffe Institute.