Mommy, speak clearly: induced hearing loss shapes vowel hyperarticulation

Talkers hyperarticulate vowels when communicating with listeners that require increased speech intelligibility. Vowel hyperarticulation is said to be motivated by knowledge of the listener's linguistic needs because it typically occurs in speech to infants, foreigners and hearing-impaired listeners, but not to non-verbal pets. However, the degree to which vowel hyperarticulation is determined by feedback from the listener is surprisingly less well understood. This study examines whether mothers' speech input is driven by knowledge of the infant's linguistic competence, or by the infant's feedback cues. Specifically, we manipulated (i) mothers' knowledge of whether they believed their infants could hear them or not, and (ii) the audibility of the speech signal available to the infant (full or partial audibility, or inaudible). Remarkably, vowel hyperarticulation was completely unaffected by mothers' knowledge; instead, there was a reduction in the degree of hyperarticulation such that vowels were hyperarticulated to the greatest extent in the full audibility condition, there was reduced hyperarticulation in the partially audible condition, and no hyperarticulation in the inaudible condition. Thus, while it might be considered adaptive to hyperarticulate speech to the hearing-impaired adult or infant, when these two factors (infant and hearing difficulty) are coupled, vowel hyperarticulation is sacrificed. Our results imply that infant feedback drives talker behavior and raise implications for intervention strategies used with carers of hearing-impaired infants.     

How does cognition evolve? Phylogenetic comparative psychology

Now more than ever animal studies have the potential to test hypotheses regarding how cognition evolves. Comparative psychologists have developed new techniques to probe the cognitive mechanisms underlying animal behavior, and they have become increasingly skillful at adapting methodologies to test multiple species. Meanwhile, evolutionary biologists have generated quantitative approaches to investigate the phylogenetic distribution and function of phenotypic traits, including cognition. In particular, phylogenetic methods can quantitatively (1) test whether specific cognitive abilities are correlated with life history (e.g., lifespan), morphology (e.g., brain size), or socio-ecological variables (e.g., social system), (2) measure how strongly phylogenetic relatedness predicts the distribution of cognitive skills across species, and (3) estimate the ancestral state of a given cognitive trait using measures of cognitive performance from extant species. Phylogenetic methods can also be used to guide the selection of species comparisons that offer the strongest tests of a priori predictions of cognitive evolutionary hypotheses (i.e., phylogenetic targeting). Here, we explain how an integration of comparative psychology and evolutionary biology will answer a host of questions regarding the phylogenetic distribution and history of cognitive traits, as well as the evolutionary processes that drove their evolution.     

SOS! An algorithm and software for the stochastic optimization of stimuli

The characteristics of the stimuli used in an experiment critically determine the theoretical questions the experiment can address. Yet there is relatively little methodological support for selecting optimal sets of items, and most researchers still carry out this process by hand. In this research, we present SOS, an algorithm and software package for the stochastic optimization of stimuli. SOS takes its inspiration from a simple manual stimulus selection heuristic that has been formalized and refined as a stochastic relaxation search. The algorithm rapidly and reliably selects a subset of possible stimuli that optimally satisfy the constraints imposed by an experimenter. This allows the experimenter to focus on selecting an optimization problem that suits his or her theoretical question and to avoid the tedious task of manually selecting stimuli. We detail how this optimization algorithm, combined with a vocabulary of constraints that define optimal sets, allows for the quick and rigorous assessment and maximization of the internal and external validity of experimental items. In doing so, the algorithm facilitates research using factorial, multiple/mixed-effects regression, and other experimental designs. We demonstrate the use of SOS with a case study and discuss other research situations that could benefit from this tool. Support for the generality of the algorithm is demonstrated through Monte Carlo simulations on a range of optimization problems faced by psychologists. The software implementation of SOS and a user manual are provided free of charge for academic purposes as precompiled binaries and MATLAB source files at http://sos.cnbc.cmu.edu.     

Framing the Discussion: Nanotechnology and the Social Construction of Technology--What STS Scholars Are Saying

The emergence of nanotechnology, with all its promises of economic, social, and medical benefits, along with dire predictions of environmental, health, and safety threats, has occasioned an active debate in the Science and Technology Studies field, in which we have seen five distinct conversations that frame the discussion. The topical threads include ethics, regulation, opportunities and threats including utopian/dystopian visions of the future, public perception, public participation. These conversational distinctions are not absolutes with firm borders as they clearly overlap at many points. Nonetheless, common to all is a strong sense that control and consequence are significant problems that have yet to be addressed adequately by the promoters of nanotechnology. A final section addresses articles on nanotechnology that exemplify the social construction theory of technology. We include herein a selective summary of this recent body of science, technology, and society (STS) journal literature focused on the social and ethical interactions of nanotechnology (SEIN) that has emerged in the last few years. The intent is not to be encyclopedic in coverage, but rather to seek to understand, in a general way, the key issues and concepts STS scholars are discussing. It is clear that STS-oriented scholars are well poised to grapple explicitly with the cultural, socio-political, and ethical dimensions of nanotechnology. Drawing on understandings of earlier socio-technical areas of interest and concern??nuclear power, genetically modified organisms, the human genome??such scholars have moved well beyond the questions of whether and where nanotechnology intersects society. More important is their effort to seek an understanding in depth of exactly how they are socio-politically, culturally, and ethically interconnected. In doing so, SEIN studies have at the same time become increasingly diverse and more sophisticated and mature over the course of the past decade. Scholars have quite rightly recognized the inadequacies of blanket ideas of moratoria versus non-regulatory environments, utopian versus dystopian futures, and whether or not the public has a role to play in nanotechnology decision making. Rather, a more sophisticated, often case specific, flexible understanding of the societal context of a given issue or concern is called for.     

Decision-making in Shiatsu bodywork: complementariness of embodied coupling and conceptual inference

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences - “4E” cognitive science has demonstrated that embodied coupling offers powerful resources for reasoning. Despite a surge of studies, little...     

Operant Psychology Makes a Splash—In Marine Mammal Training (1955–1965)

Despite the wide spread use of operant conditioning within marine animal training, relatively little is known about this unique application of behavioral technology. This article explores the expansion of operant psychology to commercial marine animal training from 1955 to 1965, specifically at marine parks such as Marine Studios Florida, Marineland of the Pacific, Sea Life Park, and SeaWorld. The contributions of Keller and Marian Breland and their business Animal Behavior Enterprises (ABE) as well as other early practitioners of behavioral technology are reviewed. We also describe how operant technology was introduced and formalized into procedures that have become the cornerstone of marine animal training and entertainment. The rapid growth of the marine park industry during this time was closely linked to the spread of behavioral technology. The expansion of operant training methods within marine animal training is a unique success story of behavioral technology.     

Maternal Intrusiveness,Family Financial Means,and Anxiety Across Childhood in a Large Multiphase Sample of Community Youth

Intrusive parenting has been positively associated with child anxiety, although examinations of this relationship to date have been largely confined to middle to upper middle class families and have rarely used longitudinal designs. With several leading interventions for child anxiety emphasizing the reduction of parental intrusiveness, it is critical to determine whether the links between parental intrusiveness and child anxiety broadly apply to families of all financial means, and whether parental intrusiveness prospectively predicts the development of child anxiety. This study employed latent growth curve analysis to evaluate the interactive effects of maternal intrusiveness and financial means on the developmental trajectory of child anxiety from 1st grade to age 15 in 1,121 children (50.7 % male) and their parents from the NICHD SECCYD. The overall model was found to provide good fit, revealing that early maternal intrusiveness and financial means did not impact individual trajectories of change in child anxiety, which were stable from 1st to 5th grade, and then decrease from 5th grade to age 15. Cross-sectional analyses also examined whether family financial means moderated contemporaneous relationships between maternal intrusiveness and child anxiety in 3rd and 5th grades. The relationship between maternal intrusiveness and child anxiety was moderated by family financial means for 1st graders, with stronger links found among children of lower family financial means, but not for 3rd and 5th graders. Neither maternal intrusiveness nor financial means in 1st grade predicted subsequent changes in anxiety across childhood. Findings help elucidate for whom and when maternal intrusiveness has the greatest link with child anxiety and can inform targeted treatment efforts.     

The Diagnostic Utility of Separation Anxiety Disorder Symptoms: An Item Response Theory Analysis

At present, it is not clear whether the current definition of separation anxiety disorder (SAD) is the optimal classification of developmentally inappropriate, severe, and interfering separation anxiety in youth. Much remains to be learned about the relative contributions of individual SAD symptoms for informing diagnosis. Two-parameter logistic Item Response Theory analyses were conducted on the eight core SAD symptoms in an outpatient anxiety sample of treatment-seeking children (N?=?359, 59.3 % female, M _Age?=?11.2) and their parents to determine the diagnostic utility of each of these symptoms. Analyses considered values of item threshold, which characterize the SAD severity level at which each symptom has a 50 % chance of being endorsed, and item discrimination, which characterize how well each symptom distinguishes individuals with higher and lower levels of SAD. Distress related to separation and fear of being alone without major attachment figures showed the strongest discrimination properties and the lowest thresholds for being endorsed. In contrast, worry about harm befalling attachment figures showed the poorest discrimination properties, and nightmares about separation showed the highest threshold for being endorsed. Distress related to separation demonstrated crossing differential item functioning associated with age—at lower separation anxiety levels excessive fear at separation was more likely to be endorsed for children ≥9 years, whereas at higher levels this symptom was more likely to be endorsed by children <9 years. Implications are discussed for optimizing the taxonomy of SAD in youth.     

Different responses of two strains of chickens to different training procedures for magnetic directions

In previous conditioning experiments training domestic chickens to magnetic directions, a brown strain solved the task, whereas a white strain seemed unable to do so (Freire et al. Anim Cogn 11:547–552, 2008). To test whether this was possibly caused by loss of magnetic compass orientation in the white chickens, we analyzed the distribution of cryptochrome 1a, the candidate receptor molecule mediating magnetic compass information, in the retinae of Lohmann Browns and White Leghorns and found no difference between the two strains. Yet, subsequent training experiments replicated the former findings: Lohmann Browns used the magnetic field to find an imprinting stimulus hidden behind the screen in a specific magnetic direction, whereas White Leghorns did not solve the task. However, when we altered the training method by training also in a magnetic field with North shifted to geographic East and including a punishment for incorrect choices, the performance of White Leghorns improved to a significant preference for the expected directions. The Lohmann Browns, on the other hand, seemed frightened and chose randomly. Our results thus demonstrate the crucial role of the training method for conditioning to magnetic stimuli, with differences found even between strains of the same species.