An examination of simultaneous lineup identification decision processes using eye tracking

Decision processes in simultaneous lineups (an array of faces in which a ‘suspect’ face is displayed along with foil faces) were examined using eye tracking to capture the length and number of times that individual faces were visually analysed. The similarity of the lineup target face relative to the study face was manipulated, and face dwell times on the first visit and on return visits to the individual lineup faces were measured. On first visits, positively identified faces were examined for a longer duration compared to faces that were not identified. When no face was identified from the lineup, the suspect was visited for a longer duration compared to a foil face. On return visits, incorrectly identified faces were examined for a longer duration and visited more often compared to correctly identified faces. The results indicate that lineup decisions can be predicted by face dwell time and the number of visits made to faces. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Auditory processing measures: correlation with neuropsychological measures of attention, memory, and behavior.

It has been suggested that measures of auditory processing (AP) are sensitive measures of attention resulting in the high comorbidity of auditory processing disorder (APD) and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Others have found that selected AP measures share significant variance with memory tasks. The current study investigated the relation between AP measures and various neuropsychological measures presumed to measure attention and memory in 36 children with a mean age of 7.78 years (SD=1.61) referred to an outpatient facility. Results indicate that AP measures significantly correlated with each other as well as with some measures of attention, memory, and behavior ratings. Results suggest that although AP measures include elements of both attention and memory, these measures also appear to assess processes not tapped by other measures of attention and memory. The correlation of AP measures with parent-and teacher-rated withdrawal, parent-rated somatization, conduct, and depression, as well as teacher-rated attention, anxiety, learning problems, social skills, and leadership suggest that auditory processing problems may manifest in myriad behaviors across settings. Implications for practice and future research are presented.     

Visual word recognition is accompanied by covert articulation: evidence for a speech-like phonological representation

Two lexical decision task (LDT) experiments examined whether visual word recognition involves the use of a speech-like phonological code that may be generated via covert articulation. In Experiment 1, each visual item was presented with an irrelevant spoken word (ISW) that was either phonologically identical, similar, or dissimilar to it. An ISW delayed classification of a visual word when the two were phonologically similar, and it delayed the classification of a pseudoword when it was identical to the base word from which the pseudoword was derived. In Experiment 2, a LDT was performed with and without articulatory suppression, and pseudowords consisted of regular pseudowords and pseudohomophones. Articulatory suppression decreased sound-specific ISW effects for words and regular pseudowords but not for pseudohomophones. These findings indicate that the processing of an orthographically legal letter sequence generally involves the specification of more than one sound code, one of which involves covert articulation.     

SUN: Top-down saliency using natural statistics

When people try to find particular objects in natural scenes they make extensive use of knowledge about how and where objects tend to appear in a scene. Although many forms of such "top-down" knowledge have been incorporated into saliency map models of visual search, surprisingly, the role of object appearance has been infrequently investigated. Here we present an appearance-based saliency model derived in a Bayesian framework. We compare our approach with both bottom-up saliency algorithms as well as the state-of-the-art Contextual Guidance model of Torralba et al. (2006) at predicting human fixations. Although both top-down approaches use very different types of information, they achieve similar performance; each substantially better than the purely bottom-up models. Our experiments reveal that a simple model of object appearance can predict human fixations quite well, even making the same mistakes as people.     

The Boston Naming Test: Norm data and cue utilization in a sample of normal 6- and 7-year-old children

The object-naming abilities of 83 normal children were examined using the Boston Naming Test developed by E. Kaplan, H. Goodglass, and S. Weintraub (1976, The Boston Naming Test (experimental edition), unpublished test, Veterans Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts). There is currently a lack of available norms for this instrument, especially for populations of younger children. Cue utilization in this sample is explored and attention is focused upon possible gender differences in naming performance and cue strategies. Seven summary scores derived from the test are presented in this report. Results indicate that the Boston Naming Test can discriminate within a normal population sample of young children and provides a relatively normal distribution for six of seven derived scores. Boys were found to have a significantly greater number of items correctly named but no gender differences in cue utilization were evident. A major proportion of the children in this sample of 6- and 7-year-olds used phonological cues almost exclusively, rather than semantic cues also provided. Cue use was not related to age or spontaneously given responses, and none of the children were found to be highly proficient at using both types of cues.     

Automaticity and the detection of speech

The development of automatic perceptual responses to speech stimuli was examined. In the first experiment, phoneme-monitoring performance for speech syllables was examined under conditions in which stimulus-to-response mapping and memory load were manipulated. The results indicated that automaticity develops under consistent-mapping conditions. In the second experiment, a dual-task procedure was combined with mapping and selective attention manipulations in order to examine the development of automaticity across single- and multiple-channel conditions. The results indicated that performance under consistently mapped training conditions was interfered with by dividing attention across multiple channels of input. It is concluded that there may be differences in the way that automaticity develops across visual and auditory modalities and that these differences need to be examined more closely.     

Detection of faking on the Tennessee Self-Concept Scale

The Tennessee Self Concept Scale (TSCS) was administered to a subject of 352 university students under standard administration conditions. Four other subsets responded under conditions designed to induce moderate and maximum faking in both positive and negative directions. Members of a sixth subset ("Sleepers") responded irrelevantly to from 10% to 50% of the TSCS items. Multiple discriminant analysis of the faked responses, using Column and Self-Criticism scores as predictors, supported a two-dimensional interpretation of the TSCS (self-concept and self-criticism). Analysis of classification errors showed the greatest confusion resulted from classification of Fake-Good respondents into the Standard group. Rasch analysis of sleeper responses was relatively insensitive to implausible response subsets. A second study (n = 413) supported conclusions of the first, and exploratory analyses suggested the possibility that a "Faking Score" may be developed using a set of specific item responses rather than subscale scores.     

An application of the pictorial scale of perceived competence and acceptance within an epidemiological survey

The Perceived Competence and Acceptance Scale for Younger Children (PCS) was examined in the course of an epidemiological survey of psychological disorders in children. Eighty-three children, aged 6 and 7 years, were administered several measures including the WISC-R, the WRAT, the Lie Scale for Children, and the PCS. Teachers provided ratings from a parallel version of the PCS and reported on the behavioral and social development of each child through the Child Behavior Checklist. Investigation of the psychometric characteristics of the PCS substantially replicates findings reported by its developers. The size and direction of correlations among the cognitive competence subscale of the PCS, achievement measures, and the Lie Scale indicate that children tend to more accurately report about this domain than others included in the PCS. Children who reported atypically high or low PCS levels were not found to differ from the remainder of the sample on two clinical indices. Children who tended to exaggerate PCS levels, as compared to teacher ratings, had significantly more behavior problems in school and were seen by two observers as more apt to be currently maladjusted.     

Effects of dialect on merger perception: ERP and behavioral correlates

Native speakers of a language are often unable to consciously perceive, and have altered neural responses to, phonemic contrasts not present in their language. This study examined whether speakers of dialects of the same language with different phoneme inventories also show measurably different neural responses to contrasts not present in their dialect. Speakers with (n=11) and without (n=11) an American English I/E (pin/pen) vowel merger in speech production were asked to discriminate perceptually between minimal pairs of words that contrasted in the critical vowel merger and minimal pairs of control words while their event-related potential (ERPs) were recorded. Compared with unmerged dialect speakers, merged dialect speakers were less able to make behavioral discriminations and exhibited a reduced late positive ERP component (LPC) effect to incongruent merger vowel stimuli. These results indicate that between dialects of a single language, the behavioral response differences may reflect neural differences related to conscious phonological decision processes.