Ulric neisser (1928-2012)

Presents an obituary for Ulric Neisser. Neisser changed the course of psychology. He moved a generation of psychologists in the direction of the field named by his first book, Cognitive Psychology (1967, Appleton-Century-Crofts). He then challenged that field with his later book Cognition and Reality (1976, W. H. Freeman). Finally, he explored cracks in the received wisdom within the fields of attention, memory, and intelligence through a distinguished array of edited volumes and provocative articles. Throughout his life, he made a marriage between belief in discovered truth and complete skepticism by means of a passionate, serial monogamy of ideas. He died on February 17, 2012, at age 83 of complications from Parkinson's disease. His many honors included election as a member of the National Academy of Sciences and as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Re‐Presentations of Space in Hollywood Movies: An Event‐Indexing Analysis

Popular movies present chunk‐like events (scenes and subscenes) that promote episodic, serial updating of viewers’ representations of the ongoing narrative. Event‐indexing theory would suggest that the beginnings of new scenes trigger these updates, which in turn require more cognitive processing. Typically, a new movie event is signaled by an establishing shot, one providing more background information and a longer look than the average shot. Our analysis of 24 films reconfirms this. More important, we show that, when returning to a previously shown location, the re‐establishing shot reduces both context and duration while remaining greater than the average shot. In general, location shifts dominate character and time shifts in event segmentation of movies. In addition, over the last 70 years re‐establishing shots have become more like the noninitial shots of a scene. Establishing shots have also approached noninitial shot scales, but not their durations. Such results suggest that film form is evolving, perhaps to suit more rapid encoding of narrative events.     

Perception of temporal order in vowel sequences with and without formant transitions.

Temporal-order perception of phoneme segments in running speech is much superior to temporal-order perception in repeating vowel sequences. The more rapid rates possible in running speech may be due largely to the presence of formant transitions. In a series of five experiments we observed that many temporal-order misjudgements of repeating vowels can be explained in terms of auditory stream segregation, triggered for the most part by discontinuities in first-formant frequencies of adjacent vowels. Streaming, however, can be suppressed by formant transitions appropriate for the perception of stop consonants and by continuous transitions resembling those in coarticulated vowels. At rapid sequence rates, when the constraints of auditory streaming are removed, correct temporal-order identification is limited by linguistic transformations of vowels into other phoneme segments.     

Two left-hemisphere mechanisms in speech perception

Right-ear advantages of different magnitudes occur systematically in dichotic listening for different phoneme classes and for certain phonemes according to their syllabic position. Such differences cannot be accounted for in terms of a single mechanism unique to the left hemisphere. Instead, at least two mechanisms are needed. One such device appears to be involved in the auditory analysis of transitions and other aspects of the speech signal. This device appears to be engaged for speech and nonspeech sounds alike. The other mechanism, the more accustomed “speech processor”, appears to make all phonetic decisions in identifying the stimulus.     

Item response theory analyses of the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System card sorting subtest

In the current study, we examined the dimensionality of the 16-item Card Sorting subtest of the Delis-Kaplan Executive Functioning System assessment in a sample of 264 native English-speaking children between the ages of 9 and 15 years. We also tested for measurement invariance for these items across age and gender groups using item response theory (IRT). Results of the exploratory factor analysis indicated that a two-factor model that distinguished between verbal and perceptual items provided the best fit to the data. Although the items demonstrated measurement invariance across age groups, measurement invariance was violated for gender groups, with two items demonstrating differential item functioning for males and females. Multigroup analysis using all 16 items indicated that the items were more effective for individuals whose IRT scale scores were relatively high. A single-group explanatory IRT model using 14 non-differential item functioning items showed that for perceptual ability, females scored higher than males and that scores increased with age for both males and females; for verbal ability, the observed increase in scores across age differed for males and females. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Blowing in the wind: Perceiving structure in trees and bushes

When lights are mounted at the ends of the limbs of a tree and the surround darkened such that branches and trunk are not visible, viewers can nonetheless make systematic and precise judgments about the unseen structure of the tree through its motion. They seem to perform this task by picking up information about the relative arborization of the tree through the vector paths of the lights on the limbs. Theoretically speaking, the focus of this study is on the perception of second-order centers of moment; previous studies have focused on the perception of first-order centers. A second-order center in a tree-like structure is the location where limb meets trunk, and it is these that perceivers can infer from the dynamic display. The importance of this study is to demonstrate further that the study of centers of moment makes possible a detailed and differential study of event perception.