Detection and identification thresholds for consonant-vowel syllables

Detection and identification thresholds were obtained for 6- and 10-year-old normal children and normal adults using five-formant synthesized consonant-vowel ([baHdflrfea]) stimuli. Sixyear-old children were found to have poorer detection than adults, just as they do for pure tones. For the identification task, the slopes of the performance-intensity functions were more shallow for 6-year-old children than for 10-year-olds and adults. Consequently, compared with 10-yearolds and adults, 6-year-old listeners require a greater increase in stimulus intensity above detection threshold to identify these stimuli at a high performance level. The influence of acoustic characteristics of the stimuli on all listeners is also discussed.     

Classification and identification thresholds for three types of verbal materials

The first two experiments found thresholds for classification into one of three categories of Erlglish words, Turkish words, and letter alternations to be significantly lower than thresholds for the identification of the specific items; parallel results were found with the two methods of measurement employed. Both thresholds were lowest for English words, and classification thresholds were lower for Turkish words than for letter alternations, but the identification thresholds of these two kinds of materials showed a reversal. The third experiment found classification thresholds for the same three types of materials to be higher than either of two three-choice identification thresholds, one a choice among three same-type items and the other, a choice among one English word, one Turkish word, and one letter alternation.     

Classification and identification thresholds for three types of verbal materials

The first two experiments found thresholds for classification into one of three categories of English words, Turkish words, and letter alternations to be significantly lower than thresholds for the identification of the specific items; parallel results were found with the two methods of measurement employed. Both thresholds were lowest for English words, and classification thresholds were lower for Turkish words than for letter alternations, but the identification thresholds of these two kinds of materials showed a reversal. The third experiment found classification thresholds for the same three types of materials to be higher than either of two three-choice identification thresholds, one a choice among three sametype items and the other, a choice among one English word, one Turkish word, and one letter alternation.     

Simulating individual word identification thresholds and errors in the fragmentation task

This article presents a large-scale study that collected word identification thresholds and errors in the fragmentation task for all four-letter French words. In the first part of this article, we identify some of the variables (e.g., word frequency, neighborhood size, letter confusability) that affect performance in the fragmentation task. In the second part, we analyze individual response performance and identify different response strategies. We demonstrate that the interactive activation model can account for individual response strategies by adapting two of its original parameters: word-letter feedback and letter-word inhibition. In the third part, we demonstrate that the adaptation of the interactive activation model to the fragmentation task makes it possible to successfully simulate a facilitatory frequency effect on identification thresholds, an inhibitory neighborhood size effect on error rates, and an inhibitory letter confusability effect on identification thresholds. When the task-specific processes of the fragmentation task are specified and individual response strategies are considered, the interactive activation model provides a parsimonious architecture for modeling the task-independent processes involved in word perception.     

Six characters in search of an author: a constructivist view

The investigation of imaginative literature has been one of psychotherapy's most useful tools for the explication of its theories and the general dissemination of psychotherapeutic concepts. Using this idea, I examine Luigi Pirandello's play Six Characters in Search of an Author from a constructivist, family therapy, point of view.     

Impact of interactivity on identification with characters in fiction

The effect of interactivity on identification with characters in audiovisual fiction was observed. 310 participants were asked to watch a film in one of these two conditions: 1) interactive (they selected the plot), and 2) non-interactive (they consumed the fiction in a conventional way). After watching the movie, they completed a questionnaire with the EDI scale of identification and empathy with characters, created by Igartua and Paez. The capacity to intervene in the configuration of the plot (interactivity) affected identification with characters. The results provide data about the psychology of media and interactivity in communication and allow us to understand the processes of empathy and identification with characters.     

Visual-word identification thresholds for the 260 fragmented words of the Snodgrass and Vanderwart pictures in Spanish

Word difficulty varies from language to language; therefore, normative data of verbal stimuli cannot be imported directly from another language. We present mean identification thresholds for the 260 screen-fragmented words corresponding to the total set of Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980) pictures. Individual words were fragmented in eight levels using Turbo Pascal, and the resulting program was implemented on a PC microcomputer. The words were presented individually to a group of 40 Spanish observers, using a controlled time procedure. An unspecific learning effect was found showing that performance improved due to practice with the task. Finally, of the 11 psycholinguistic variables that previous researchers have shown to affect word identification, only imagery accounted for a significant amount of variance in the threshold values.     

Perceptual identification thresholds for 150 fragmented pictures from the Snodgrass and Vanderwart picture set

This paper reports perceptual identification thresholds for 150 pictures from the 1980 Snodgrass and Vanderwart picture set. These pictures were fragmented and presented on the Apple Macintosh microcomputer in a picture-fragment completion task in which identification thresholds were obtained at three phases of learning: Train (initial presentation), New (initial presentation after training on a different set), and Old (repeated presentation of the Train set). Pictures were divided into five sets of two subsets of 15 pictures each, which served alternately as the Train and New sets. A total of 100 subjects participated in the task, with 10 subjects assigned to each subset. Individual thresholds for each picture at each phase of learning are presented, along with the fragmented pictures identified by 35% of the subjects across the Train and New learning phases. This set of fragmented pictures is provided for use in experiments in which a single level of fragmented image is presented for identification after a priming phase. Correlations between the Snodgrass and Vanderwart norms and identification thresholds at the three phases of learning are also reported.     

Interhemispheric interaction affected by identification of Chinese characters

One aspect of interhemispheric processing that has recently received attention is whether it increases or decreases the processing power of the brain. The present study investigated whether dividing information between the hemispheres becomes more advantageous to task performance as computational complexity increases. A Chinese character matching task was given to subjects involving three levels of computational complexity (the pairs of characters being divided into three types, visually similar, homonymous, and synonymous). The result showed no difference in performance between within-field and across-field presentation for visually similar characters. Performance was significantly better for across field than within field with homophones and synonyms. However, the error rates of within field for phonetic matching was significantly higher than those for semantic matching. These results suggest that both the computational difficulty of materials and the intrinsic function of each hemisphere play a role in interhemispheric processing.     

Font effects of Chinese characters and pseudo-characters on the N400: evidence for an orthographic processing view

Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded during a Chinese character decision task to examine whether N400 amplitude is modulated by stimulus font. Results revealed large negative-going ERPs in an N400 time window of 300-500ms to stimuli presented in degraded Xing Kai Ti (XKT) font compared with more intact Song Ti (ST) font regardless of whether the stimuli were real or pseudo-characters. ERPs for the pseudo-characters were more negative than for the real characters with similar timing and scalp distribution. The N400-like font effect on amplitude is interpreted as analogous to an N400 stimulus degradation effect, an extension to Holcomb (1993); the degraded perceptual cues provided by XKT supposedly account for this degradation effect. This effect is further interpreted to reflect relative difficulty, which results from orthographic processing difficulty, in retrieving the meaning of XKT stimuli compared with ST stimuli.     

The role of gender and gender role similarity in readers' identification with story characters

This study tested the hypothesis that adult readers would identify with story characters who display a similar gender role orientation. Male and female readers rated their identification with male and female characters who acted in either a masculine or feminine manner in short story vignettes. The primary finding was an interaction between gender role of reader and gender role behavior of character: as predicted, androgynous and undifferentiated readers identified equally with both masculine and feminine characters, masculine readers identified more strongly with masculine characters than feminine characters, and feminine readers identified more strongly with feminine characters than masculine characters. Further, androgynous readers identified somewhat more strongly with both types of characters than undifferentiated readers. However, the predicted effect of gender similarity between reader and character did not exert a strong influence on the identification process. In addition, feminine subjects reported greater identification across all four stories than masculine and undifferentiated subjects. Finally, of three questionnaire measures of empathy tested, only Davis's (1983) Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Empathic Concern subscale) significantly predicted general level of identification; as expected, these scores were significantly correlated with femininity gender role scores.     

Masking and the identification of characters presented simultaneously and sequentially to the parafovea

Summary The effects of masking and simultaneous vs sequential exposure on identification accuracy of parafoveally presented pairs of stimuli were examined in four experiments. When masking figures were continuously present in positions not occupied by stimulus characters, accuracy of identification was significantly poorer on the relatively central member of a pair when members were simultaneously exposed and when the central member was exposed second. When masking figures were not used, performance was significantly poorer on the central member only when pair members were exposed simultaneously. Requiring the identification of both members of the pair produced a different ordering of overall accuracy among the simultaneous and sequential conditions from when only one member was identified. It was concluded that asymmetric lateral inhibition of feature extraction operated only when target and nontarget were simultaneously present. An additional source of asymmetric disruption occurs when masking figures flanking the target change before or with the appearance of the target.     

A direct nomination method for the identification of neglected members in children's peer groups

This paper describes two studies that compared a direct nomination method for identifying the neglected members of children's peer groups with the commonly used derived social impact score method. In the first study, first-grade children were asked to nominate peers to a neglect dimension in addition to the traditional sociometric dimensions of like and dislike. Both neglect and social impact scores were quite stable over time. Social impact scores were significantly more stable than neglect scores when the full range of scores was considered; however, when the two measures were compared in terms of the stability with which children are identified as extreme scores, the two methods were equally reliable. In spite of this similarity, the two measures identified different children as extreme scorers on each occasion. In an attempt to explain this confusion, the second study investigated the patterns of correlations between observed behaviors and directly nominated neglect, like, and dislike scores and derived social preference and social impact scorers. Results indicated that directly nominated neglect scores were correlated with observed behavioral variables that are consistent with the notion of social neglect. Derived social impact scores were related to observed behavioral variables exactly as their component parts (directly nominated like and dislike scores) were related to these variables; thus, they carried little new information.     

Old-age deficits in the sense of smell as gauged by thresholds, magnitude matching, and odor identification

Twenty elderly subjects (70-90 years old) and 20 young control subjects (18-24 years old) underwent three kinds of olfactory testing: absolute thresholds to three odorants (d-limonene, iso-amyl butyrate, benzaldehyde), magnitude matching of these odorants to salt tastes, and odor identification of 30 common substances. For all three odorants elderly subjects' mean threshold significantly exceeded that of the young by about ninefold for d-limonene, about threefold for benzaldehyde, and about twofold for iso-amyl butyrate. These threshold differences predict approximate concentration differences necessary to arouse the same estimated odor strength above the threshold for the elderly and the young. Young subjects also scored better than the elderly in odor identification, even when subjects were given four alternatives from which to select the correct label. Unimpaired olfactory functioning is uncommon in the elderly; correlational tests show that as a group the young have better olfactory ability and show more interindividual uniformity.     

Detection and discrimination thresholds for auditory periodicity

Complex periodic auditory signals, produced by the Guttman-Julesz procedure of repeating segments of random noise, were employed to address the low region of auditory periodicity. Periodicity detection and discrimination tasks were examined with a common experimental procedure and a common measure of thresholds. Typically, detection and discrimination performance suffer at extremely low periodicities, presumably because of the extremely close spacing of harmonics throughout the auditory spectrum. Interaural phase effects are extremely weak for these signals, being largely confined to threshold-detection tasks. Despite qualitative phenomenological differences for different periodicity regions, detection and discrimination functions show no sharp discontinuities over a wide range of periodicities.