The missing fundamental in vowel height perception

Traunmüller (1981) suggested that the tonotopic distance between the first formant (F ₁) and the fundamental frequency (F ₀) is a major determinant of perceived vowel height. In the present study, subjects identified a vowel-height continuum ranging in formant pattern from /?/ to /ε/, at fiveF ₀ values. IncreasingF ₀ led to an increased probability of /I/ responses (i.e., the phoneme boundary shifted toward the /ε/ end of the continuum). Various conditions of filtering out the lower harmonics of the stimuli caused only marginal shifts of the phoneme boundary. The experiments provide evidence against interpretations of Traunmüller’s (1981) results that claim that vowel height is determined by the distance betweenF ₁ and the lowest harmonic that is present in the basilar membrane excitation pattern.     

A further parallel between selective adaptation and contrast

It is generally believed that selective adaptation effects in speech perception are due to a reduction in sensitivity of auditory feature detectors. Recent evidence suggest that these effects may derive instead from contrast. In a further test of the contrast hypothesis, we conducted two experiments each involving both adaptation and contrast sessions with matching stimulus sets. During the adaptation sessions of Experiment 1, subjects identified two series of velar stimuli varying in voice onset time, [ga]-[kha] and [gi]-[khi], before and after adaptation with of the following stimuli: [ga], [kha], [gi], and [khi]. In the contrast session, subjects identified either of two ambiguous test items (drawn from near the phonetic boundaries of the [ga]-[kha] and the [gi]-[khi] series) following a single presentation of [ga], [kha], [gi], or [khi]. For both the adaptation and contrast sessions, (a) the [--a] test items were more greatly affected (in a contrast direction) by the [--a] than by the [--i] adaptor/context stimuli, and (b) the [--i] test items were not differentially affected by the [--1] and [--i] adaptor/context stimuli. An analogous design was used in Experiment 2, except that the stimulus sets varied in pitch rather than vowel quality. For both the adaptation and contrast sessions, the test items were not differentially affected by the pitch of the adaptor/context stimulus. These parallel results provide further evidence that adaptation effects are actually a form of contrast.     

Resolving ambiguity: a psycholinguistic approach to understanding prosody processing in high-functioning autism

Individuals with autism exhibit significant impairments in prosody production, yet there is a paucity of research on prosody comprehension in this population. The current study adapted a psycholinguistic paradigm to examine whether individuals with autism are able to use prosody to resolve syntactically ambiguous sentences. Participants were 21 adolescents with high-functioning autism (HFA), and 22 typically developing controls matched on age, IQ, receptive language, and gender. The HFA group was significantly less likely to use prosody to disambiguate syntax, but scored comparably to controls when syntax alone or both prosody and syntax indicated the correct response. These findings indicate that adolescents with HFA have difficulty using prosody to disambiguate syntax in comparison to typically developing controls, even when matched on chronological age, IQ, and receptive language. The implications of these findings for how individuals with autism process language are discussed.     

Six-year change in affect optimization and affect complexity across the adult life span: a further examination

This study examines the life course of 2 independent components of adult affective development, 1 aimed at differentiation and complexity, the other aimed at optimization and positive emotional balance. These 2 components are predicted to have different developmental trajectories over the adult life span and to become related in a compensatory fashion under conditions of resource restrictions, such as those related to late life. Using individual growth curve estimation, we modeled 6-year longitudinal changes in the 2 components in a total sample of 388 individuals ranging in age from 15 to 88 years. As predicted, initial level of affect optimization was positively associated with age up to late middle age with a subsequent leveling off; individual rates of change were found to decelerate with age up to age 60 years and accelerate again around age 80 years. For affect complexity, initial level of affect complexity was positively associated with age up to age 45 years and negatively associated with age from then on, whereas individual rates of change were negatively associated with age, and this association tended to get stronger with age.     

Glucocorticoid-mediated effects of systemic oxytocin upon memory retrieval

During the last decade, a considerable amount of evidence has accumulated to show that oxytocin (OT) is involved with functions other than its classical roles in reproduction-associated processes, such as social recognition, maternal behavior and neuroendocrine regulation of the stress response. It has been shown, for instance, that post-training systemic administration of oxytocin in mice produces an amnestic effect on the step-through inhibitory avoidance. Since it is still unclear how systemic levels of OT may affect CNS memory processes, our aim here was to investigate the hypothesis that systemic OT effects on memory retrieval might be mediated through an oxytocin-induced decrease in glucocorticoid release. In our first experiment, we have found an amnestic effect of i.p. pre-test 0.4 microg/kg of OT upon memory retrieval in the inhibitory avoidance task (IA); this OT dose was shown to (a) significantly decrease plasma corticosterone levels when compared to the saline group, and (b) not to cause any anxiety effects by itself in a plus-maze task. At last, an ineffective-by-itself dose of dexamethasone was able to reverse the amnestic effect of this OT dose. Our results suggest that the amnestic effect of systemically administered oxytocin upon memory retrieval in the inhibitory avoidance task was probably caused by an oxytocin-induced decrease in glucocorticoid release from the adrenal gland.     

What you think is what you get: comparative evaluations of close relationships

Three studies tested the hypothesis that focus of comparison moderates the influence of comparison standards on relationship satisfaction. Participants were asked to evaluate either their current relationships or their alternative relationships relative to an external comparison standard: a romantic stereotype (Study 1) or others' relationships (Studies 2 and 3). Consistent with the focusing hypothesis, the results show that people are more satisfied when they assimilate their relationship outcomes to a high standard or when they contrast them away from a low standard. Satisfaction, however, also increases when alternative relationships are contrasted away from a high standard or when they are assimilated to a low standard of comparison. Perceived quality of alternatives partially mediated the impact of focus of comparison on satisfaction. This finding is consistent with interdependence theory's distinction between a comparison level and a comparison level for alternative relationships, which are not completely independent from each other.     

MIRROR-TIME: EMPIRICAL FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR A CONSTRUCTIVIST PSYCHOTHERAPEUTIC TECHNIQUE

This study summarizes and extends prior research on mirror-time, a constructivist psychotherapeutic technique (Mahoney, 1991). Participants ( N = 95) were randomly assigned to mirror-time with music or music plus instruction and completed several psychosocial measures including open-ended questions. Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) was recorded for a baseline, mirror-time, and post-mirror condition. Overall, GSR levels increased from the baseline to mirror to post-mirror phases, and significant variations were found among participants according to self-esteem and gender. Gender and social physique anxiety showed a significant interaction in the music condition, suggesting their importance when assigning mirror-time. Both positive and negative affect decreased from pre- to post-study, indicating an overall flattening of affect possibly related to relaxation. Additional findings, participants' reactions, and implications for the use of mirror-time in psychotherapy are summarized.     

Formant transition duration and amplitude rise time as cues to the stop/glide distinction.

There is some disagreement in the literature about the relative contribution of formant transition duration and amplitude rise time in signalling the contrast between stops and glides. In this study, listeners identified sets of /ba/ and /wa/ stimuli in which transition duration and rise time varied orthogonally. Both variables affected labelling performance in the expected direction (i.e. the proportion of /b/ responses increased with shorter transition durations and shorter rise times). However, transition duration served as the primary cue to the stop/glide distinction, whereas rise time played a secondary, contrast-enhancing role. A qualitatively similar pattern of results was obtained when listeners made abrupt-onset/gradual-onset judgements of single sine-wave stimuli that modelled the rise times, frequency trajectories, and durations of the first formant in the /ba/-/wa/ stimuli. The similarities between the speech and non-speech conditions suggest that significant auditory commonalities underlie performance in the two cases.