Integrating speech information across talkers, gender, and sensory modality: female faces and male voices in the McGurk effect.

Studies of the McGurk effect have shown that when discrepant phonetic information is delivered to the auditory and visual modalities, the information is combined into a new percept not originally presented to either modality. In typical experiments, the auditory and visual speech signals are generated by the same talker. The present experiment examined whether a discrepancy in the gender of the talker between the auditory and visual signals would influence the magnitude of the McGurk effect. A male talker's voice was dubbed onto a videotape containing a female talker's face, and vice versa. The gender-incongruent videotapes were compared with gender-congruent videotapes, in which a male talker's voice was dubbed onto a male face and a female talker's voice was dubbed onto a female face. Even though there was a clear incompatibility in talker characteristics between the auditory and visual signals on the incongruent videotapes, the resulting magnitude of the McGurk effect was not significantly different for the incongruent as opposed to the congruent videotapes. The results indicate that the mechanism for integrating speech information from the auditory and the visual modalities is not disrupted by a gender incompatibility even when it is perceptually apparent. The findings are compatible with the theoretical notion that information about voice characteristics of the talker is extracted and used to normalize the speech signal at an early stage of phonetic processing, prior to the integration of the auditory and the visual information.     

Evaluation of an index to detect inaccurate respondents to a task analysis inventory

An infrequency index assesses the tendency of respondents on job analysis questionnaires to rate job-irrelevant tasks as important. The purpose of the study was to evaluate whether this index could detect respondents who made rating errors on job-relevant tasks. The respondents were incumbents of three jobs: mental health workers (N=254), clerical workers (N=102), and police corporals (N=118). Differences in interrater reliability between low and high scorers on the infrequency index were found for the mental health workers on one of two response scales. For all three samples, individuals who scored higher on the infrequency index rated job-relevant tasks significantly higher. It was concluded that the index can detect respondents making constant error due to response sets and distortions. However, the usefulness of the index to detect individuals making random errors may be limited. On the basis of these results and on conceptual grounds, it was argued that job analysts should incorporate the infrequency index as part of their task analysis questionnaires.     

Naive beliefs in “sophisticated” subjects: misconceptions about trajectories of objects

University students were asked to solve simple problems about the trajectories of falling objects. A majority of the students revealed a variety of misconceptions about motion. However, the few basic patterns of responses produced by the subjects suggest considerable commonality in the types of naive physical “laws” people develop on the basis of everyday experience with the world.     

An auditory Stroop effect with judgments of speaker gender

A series of “auditory Stroop” experiments is described. These demonstrate an effect of stimulus words presented on speed of judgments of speaker gender and, conversely, an influence of speaker gender on judgments of words presented. In an experiment in which responses to speaker gender were semantically related to, but not identical with, stimulus words, the auditory Stroop effect was attenuated but remained in evidence. Potential parallels between this auditory paradigm and the visual Stroop color/word effect are explored, and it is suggested that the Stroop effects in the two modalities operate along broadly similar lines. The search for a common causal mechanism would therefore be justified.     

A model system for psychotherapy research data management

An on-line data management system was developed to provide optimal access to research data. The specific application involved collecting data on four outcome measures from patients receiving brief psychotherapy to ameliorate a stress response syndrome. The on-line data management system also was designed to be transported to other research settings; a variety of other applications of this system are suggested. The need for such a system, the elements that it comprises, its operation, and its availability also are covered.     

Preference as a function of the correlation between stimuli and reinforcement outcomes

Pigeons' preferences for stimuli that were to varying degrees correlated with outcomes were studied in two experiments using a concurrent-chain procedure. The pigeons chose between two terminal links, each ending with food reinforcement and with blackout on half of the trials. In the first experiment, one terminal link (nonpredictive or unreliable link) provided stimuli completely uncorrelated with the outcomes while the other terminal link (predictive or reliable link) provided stimuli that were, to varying degrees, correlated with these outcomes. All pigeons showed increasing preferences for the predictive link as the reliability of the stimuli in that link increased. In the second experiment, stimuli in both terminal links were differentially correlated with the outcomes. The pigeons again preferred the more reliably correlated terminal link. The relation between these results and the delay-reduction hypothesis and conditioned reinforcement account is noted. The behavioral value of predictive stimuli may lie in their permitting the organism to more effectively apportion its time between interim activities and terminal responses.     

Signal detection and identification at successive stages of observation

The relationship of signal identification to signal detection was examined in a series of experiments. The signals were idealized lines and patterns of lines in a spectrographic display. On each trial, progressively more of the complete spectrogram was exposed in successive observation intervals, and after each interval the observer made both detection and identification responses that were based on the accumulating evidence. One model we employed conceives of detection and identification as proceeding together over time as parts of a unified process. A second model used shows how thejoint detection-and-identification ROC—a relative operating characteristic that relates the joint probability of correct detectionand correct identification to the probability of a false detection—may be predicted from the simple detection ROC. Both models were supported by the data.     

The Rawdon-Smith illusion

A loudness illusion is described which was originally reported by Rawdon-Smith and Grindley (1935). It is analogous to the Craik-O’Brien-Cornsweet brightness illusion. Procedures are described for generating and measuring the size of the effect, and data are presented showing factors that influence its magnitude. Other examples are discussed that suggest that this effect is a very general phenomenon.     

Comparative evaluation of computer-based tachistoscopes

Various methods of implementing a computer-based tachistoscope are compared. Software considerations are emphasized, but hardward issues are also examined. Three types of systems are identified: file-driven systems, sets of callable subroutines, and special languages. All have advantages in some circumstances. A system of callable subroutines is favored, together with a file-driven system written in the host language using the subroutines.