Development of species identification in ducklings: I. Nature of perceptual deficit caused by embryonic auditory deprivation.

In simultaneous choice tests with normal and filtered maternal calls, devocal-isolated ducklings were much more likely than vocal-communal ducklings to select the mallard maternal call in which the higher frequencies were severely attenuated, thus indicating their relative insensitivity to the higher frequency components of the maternal call. On the other hand, the devocal ducklings were as adept as vocal ducklings in selecting the normal mallard maternal cal1 when it was pitted against a low-frequency attenuated mallard call. Thus, the perceptual deficiency resulting from embryonic and postnatal auditory deprivation is selective in the sense of being relegated to the higher frequency components of the maternal call. Devocalization prevents the embryo and hatchling from hearing their own vocalizations all of which happen to be in the high-frequency range (greater than or equal to 1,500 Hz).     

Development of species identification in ducklings: III. Maturational rectification of perceptual deficit caused by auditory deprivation.

Mute ducklings, devocalized as embryos and maintained in auditory isolation, manifest a selective high-frequency perceptual deficit vis-à-vis the maternal call of their species at 24 hr after hatching. Since it takes a rather specific auditory experiential input to rectify this high-frequency insensitivity at 24 hr, it was predicted that, in the absence of auditory experience, devocal-isolated ducklings would fail to show sufficient endogenously mediated improvement to bring them up to the level of perceptual competence of vocal-communal ducklings at any age. This hypothesis proved wrong in that the proportion of devocalized ducklings showing a preference for the normal maternal call over the greater than 825-Hz attenuated one became equivalent to the vocal ducklings at 48 hr after hatching, as did their ability to discriminate the normal maternal call from greater than 1,800-Hz attenuated maternal call. At 65 hr, however, the devocalized ducklings' performance deteriorated back to the level observed at 24 hr. Embryonic exposure to the (sibling) contact-contentment call prevents the perceptual deficit at 24 hr and the deterioration at 65 hr.     

The effect of generation on long-term repetition priming in auditory and visual perceptual identification

Perceptual implicit memory is typically most robust when the perceptual processing at encoding matches the perceptual processing required during retrieval. A consistent exception is the robust priming that semantic generation produces on the perceptual identification test (Masson & MacLeod, 2002), a finding which has been attributed to either (1) conceptual influences in this nominally perceptual task, or (2) covert orthographic processing during generative encoding. The present experiments assess these possibilities using both auditory and visual perceptual identification, tests in which participants identify auditory words in noise or rapidly-presented visual words. During the encoding phase of the experiments, participants generated some words and perceived others in an intermixed study list. The perceptual control condition was visual (reading) or auditory (hearing), and varied across participants. The reading and hearing conditions exhibited the expected modality–specificity, producing robust intra-modal priming and non-significant cross-modal priming. Priming in the generate condition depended on the perceptual control condition. With a read control condition, semantic generation produced robust visual priming but no auditory priming. With a hear control condition, the results were reversed: semantic generation produced robust auditory priming but not visual priming. This set of results is not consistent with a straightforward application of either the conceptual-influence or covert-orthography account, and implies that the nature of encoding in the generate condition is influenced by the broader list context.     

Duration discrimination of filled and empty auditory intervals: cognitive and perceptual factors.

Adult subjects were presented with two auditory stimuli per trial, and their task was to decide which of the two was longer in duration. An adaptive psychophysical procedure was used. In Experiments 1, 2, and 4, the base duration was 50 msec, whereas in Experiment 3, the base duration was 1 sec. In Experiments 1, 2, and 4, it was found that filled intervals (continuous tones) were discriminated more accurately than empty intervals (with onset and offset marked by clicks). It was concluded that this difference was perceptual rather than cognitive in nature, since performance on filled and empty intervals was not affected by increasing cognitive load in a dual-task procedure (Experiment 2) but was affected by backward masking (Experiment 4). In contrast, the results of Experiment 3 showed that duration discrimination of filled auditory intervals of longer duration was cognitively influenced, since performance was impaired by increasing cognitive load. Implications for notions of perceptual processing and timing mechanism underlying differences in duration discrimination with filled and empty intervals are discussed.     

Associative priming in perceptual identification: Effects of prime-processing requirements

Three experiments assessed the effects of prime-processing instructions on associative-priming in word identification and episodic memory for primes. In Experiment 1, groups instructed to read the prime silently or generate silently an associate of the prime showed a larger accuracy benefit for related over unrelated targets than did a group that decided whether an asterisk was to the right or left of the prime. The asterisk-search group showed a weaker repetition effect on a subsequent identification test of primes, indicating that the weaker priming in this group was a result of poorer perceptual processing. On a cued-recall test for primes, the generate group was superior to the other groups. In Experiment 2, we found that with weak prime-target associations, priming was comparable for read and generate groups and stronger than estimated for a guessing strategy, on the basis of single predictions made from each prime by an additional group. In Experiment 3, we demonstrated that the read and generate instructions produced similar mispriming and inhibitory effects. The results suggest that the depths of prime-processing manipulations do not have parallel effects on priming and episodic memory, and that associative priming in word identification, as in other tasks, may involve an expectancy process.     

Dynamics of perceptual grouping: Similarities in the organization of visual and auditory groups

In vision, the Gestalt principles of perceptual organization are generally well understood and remain a subject of detailed analysis. However, the possibility for a unified theory of grouping across visual and auditory modalities remains largely unexplored. Here we present examples of auditory and visual Gestalt grouping, which share important organizational properties. In particular, similarities are revealed between grouping processes in apparent motion, auditory streaming, and static 2-D displays. Given the substantial difference in the context, within which the phenomena in question occur (auditory vs. visual, static vs. dynamic), these similarities suggest that the dynamics of perceptual organization could be associated with a common (possibly central) mechanism. If the relevance of supramodal invariants of grouping is granted, the question arises as to whether they can be studied empirically. We propose that a “force-field” theory, based on a differential-geometric interpretation of perceptual space, could provide a suitable starting point for a systematic exploration of the subjective properties of certain classes of auditory and visual grouping phenomena.     

Central auditory processing : II. Effects of anterior temporal lobectomy

Ear dominance for the pitch of dichotically presented tonal stimuli was measured in nine patients before and after a unilateral anterior temporal lobectomy. Four subjects had a left and five had a right lobectomy. Every patient exhibited a change of ear dominance consistent with the hypothesis that a unilateral lobectomy decreases the perceptual salience of the tone presented to the ear contralateral to the lesion. Depending on the direction and magnitude of the subject's preoperative ear dominance and the side of the lobectomy, the postoperative results either increased or decreased the strength of ear dominance in a predictable fashion. The results support the idea that within each temporal lobe lie physiological mechanisms which can enhance the perceptual salience of the acoustic signal emitted by one sound source when other, concurrent, spatially separated sound sources are present. It is also argued that the same mechanism operates on speech, melodic, and tonal signals.     

Cortical auditory disorder caused by bilateral strategic cerebral bleedings. Analysis of two cases

The authors present the anatomical and clinical features of cortical auditory dysfunction in two patients, in whom hypertensive bleedings destroyed the cortical auditory centres in both hemispheres. The second haemorrhage occurred four years after the first bleeding in both cases. The bleedings isolated the cortical hearing centres due to the destruction of the right and left temporal white matter. During the clinical course the symptomatology has changed in both patients: pure word deafness has transformed to cortical deafness and generalised auditory agnosia. Normal pattern of brain stem auditory evoked potentials suggested intact auditory pathways. Authors conclude that transformation of clinical forms of cortical auditory disorder can be explained by the tissue reaction to the subcortical bleeding in the cortical auditory centres.     

Recalibration by pairing: a process of perceptual learning.

When two cues which normally agree in determining perceived depth are experimentally paired so that they designate discrepant values for the depth dimension, an opportunity is created for the recalibration or re-evaluation of the cues. Experiments which show recalibration of the oculomotor cues and recalibration of binocular disparity as a result of pairing these cues with other discrepant cues are reviewed. The locus of change is related to the relative dominance of different cues and the contribution of allocation of attention in determining dominance is discussed. Implications of recalibration by pairing for understanding ontogenetic development are considered. It is suggested that some cues may acquire their effectiveness as a consequence of pairing during development.     

Abstraction and perceptual individuation in primed word identification are modulated by distortion and repetition: A dissociation

One experiment investigated the effects of distortion and multiple prime repetition (super-repetition) on repetition priming using divided-visual-field word identification at test and mixed-case words (e.g., goAT). The experiment measured form-specificity (the effect of matching lettercase at study and test) for two non-conceptual study tasks. For an ideal typeface, super-repetition increased form-independent priming leaving form-specificity constant. The opposite pattern was found for a distorted typeface; super-repetition increased form-specificity, leaving form-independent priming constant. These priming effects did not depend on the study task or test hemifield for either typeface. An additional finding was that only the ideal typeface showed the usual advantage of right hemifield presentation. These results demonstrate that super-repetition produced abstraction for the ideal typeface and perceptual individuation for the distorted typeface; abstraction and perceptual individuation dissociated. We suggest that there is a fundamental duality between perceptual individuation and abstraction consistent with Tulving's (1984 Tulving, E. 1984. Precis of elements of episodic memory. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 7: 223–268. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) distinction between episodic and semantic memory. This could reflect a duality of system or process.     

Abstraction and perceptual individuation in primed word identification are modulated by distortion and repetition: a dissociation

One experiment investigated the effects of distortion and multiple prime repetition (super-repetition) on repetition priming using divided-visual-field word identification at test and mixed-case words (e.g., goAT). The experiment measured form-specificity (the effect of matching lettercase at study and test) for two non-conceptual study tasks. For an ideal typeface, super-repetition increased form-independent priming leaving form-specificity constant. The opposite pattern was found for a distorted typeface; super-repetition increased form-specificity, leaving form-independent priming constant. These priming effects did not depend on the study task or test hemifield for either typeface. An additional finding was that only the ideal typeface showed the usual advantage of right hemifield presentation. These results demonstrate that super-repetition produced abstraction for the ideal typeface and perceptual individuation for the distorted typeface; abstraction and perceptual individuation dissociated. We suggest that there is a fundamental duality between perceptual individuation and abstraction consistent with Tulving's (1984) distinction between episodic and semantic memory. This could reflect a duality of system or process.     

Psychology of spaceflight: II. Suggested bases of space motion sickness: perceptual disorientation and elevated stomach pH

Suggested causes of space-motion sickness are inferred from the experiences of a group of astronaut candidates and from the vomit pH values of nonastronauts. Both groups experienced stimulated weightlessness in an airplane.     

Experimental Studies in Ocular Behavior: II. Ocular Inadequacies in Epileptic Patients

The Allport-Vernon-Lindzey Study of Values and the Brown Modification of the Thouless Test of Religious Orthodoxy were administered to 120 male and female students in introductory psychology. Measures of anxiety, self-esteem, authoritarianism, and humanitarianism were also administered to the Ss in an effort to determine whether the two measures of religiosity would yield different personality and attitude profiles of the “religious” individual. A significant positive correlation was found between authoritarianism and the Thouless Test and between humanitarianism and the Study of Values religious measure. All other correlations involving the two measures of religiosity were found to be nonsignificant. These findings lend support to the notion that using two divergent measures of religiosity does result in the formation of different profiles of the “religious” individual.     

Repetition blindness in priming in perceptual identification: Competitive effects of a word intervening between prime and target

University students named a 72-ms masked target word that was preceded by two 120-ms consecutively presented words, a prime word followed by a distractor. In Experiment 1, all words were in lowercase letters, whereas in Experiment 2, the target word was changed to uppercase letters. In both experiments there was an accuracy and latency cost (repetition blindness: RB) when the prime was the same word as the target, with the cost much less severe in Experiment 2 than in Experiment 1. A low-frequency distractor impaired target identification compared with a high-frequency distractor. Distractor frequency interacted with target frequency such that high-frequency targets preceded by low-frequency distractors had the lowest accuracy. The results are consistent with a frequency-dependent competition for access to working memory among briefly displayed words. However, there was no clear evidence that effects of target repetition on interword competition play a role in RB. The effects of a letter case change for the target are consistent with a contribution of token distinctiveness to word-order recovery in the intervening-word priming task.     

The perceptual integration of auditory stimulus edges: an illusory short tone in stimulus patterns consisting of two partly overlapping glides

Two partly overlapping frequency glides can be perceived as consisting of a long pitch trajectory accompanied by a short tone in the temporal middle. It was found that the appearance of this middle tone could not be related to peripheral processes concerned with spectral splatter or combination tones that could have emerged during the overlap of the glides. Furthermore, it was found that the middle tone was perceived even when components of the 2 glides were separated by more than an equivalent rectangular bandwidth at any time during the overlap. The appearance of the middle tone indicates that auditory events can result from the perceptual integration of component parts-that is, stimulus edges-of acoustically different sounds.