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 effectwas 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.     

Global inhibition and midcourse corrections in speeded aiming

When some perceptual-motor relationships are reversed, participants might adopt a global inhibition strategy that replaces all normal movements with reversed movements. In two experiments, participants practiced moving a cursor from a start position to target locations. In a perceptual-motor reversal condition, in which horizontal but not vertical movements were reversed, participants were trained to move only to certain locations. Testing involved moving to all locations under the same reversal condition. Training on a subset of locations yielded partial transfer to untrained locations. These results support a global inhibition hypothesis modified to include both midcourse corrective movements and training specificity.     

A mental practice superiority effect: less retroactive interference and more transfer than physical practice

Two experiments explored the benefits to retention and transfer conferred by mental practice. During familiarization, participants typed 4-digit numbers and took an immediate typing test on both old and new numbers. Participants then typed old 4-digit numbers, either physically or mentally, with either a different response configuration or the opposite hand from that used during familiarization. On a delayed test, participants physically typed both old and new numbers with the same response configuration and hand used during familiarization. Mental practice led to less retroactive interference and more transfer than did physical practice, supporting the hypothesis that mental practice strengthens an abstract representation that does not involve specific effectors.     

When demand accelerates demand: Trailing the bandwagon

Consumers generally prefer scarce products, which has been related to their exclusiveness. Currently scarce products, however, are not necessarily exclusive, but could be scarce because many other consumers previously bought them. We propose that consumers also prefer scarce products in this situation, which an appeal to uniqueness cannot explain. Three experiments support our predictions and reveal that scarcity effects even occur when consumers only see traces of others' behavior through emptied shelf space. Furthermore, this bandwagon effect disappears when uniqueness is threatened due to others in close spatial distance.     

Pushing the limits of imagination: mental practice for learning sequences

In 2 experiments, the efficacy of motor imagery for learning to type number sequences was examined. Adults practiced typing 4-digit numbers. Then, during subsequent training, they either typed in the same or a different location, imagined typing, merely looked at each number, or performed an irrelevant task. Repetition priming (faster responses for old relative to new numbers) was observed on an immediate test and after a 3-month delay for participants who imagined typing. Improvement across the delay in typing old and new numbers was found for the imagined and actual typing conditions but not for the other conditions. The findings suggest that imagery can be used to acquire and retain representations of sequences and to improve general typing skill.     

Statutory reform is associated with improved court practice: results of a tri-state comparison

PURPOSE: This study investigates the impact of statutory reform in adult guardianship on court practice. METHODS: Case files for 298 cases of adult guardianship were reviewed in three states with varying degrees of statutory reform: MA (no reform), PA (major amendments in 1992), and CO (full re-enactment of statute per UGPPA in 2000). Five court practices associated with progressive statutory reform were studied: (1) diversion to less restrictive alternatives; (2) minimal and appropriate use of emergency procedures; (3) presence of the alleged incapacitated person at the hearing; (4) use of functional evaluation; (5) use of limited orders. RESULTS: CO more frequently utilized all five practices, whereas PA used diversion to less restrictive alternatives and less frequent emergency procedures, but not other practices. MA files rarely showed evidence for use of any of these reforms. IMPLICATIONS: Statutory reform may improve court practice. More study of the effects of reform on court practices, and the vulnerable adults served by these courts, is needed.     

Focusing effects in predecisional information acquisition

Legrenzi et al. [Legrenzi, P., Girotto, V., & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1993). Focusing in reasoning and decision making. Cognition, 49, 37-66] showed that when a single option is proposed for consideration the decision makers limit their information acquisition to this one option, failing to take into account potential alternatives. Unfortunately, the evidence supporting this focusing effect is weak and its determinants are largely unknown. In three experiments, we provided stronger support for the reality of the focusing effect and we identified two significant determinants of this phenomenon. The results show that both representational and value-related manipulations are able to reduce the effect. Results also suggest the need to distinguish between two different types of focusing: representational focusing and search-related focusing.     

The production of bimanual percussion in 12- to 24-month-old children

Bimanual coordination represents a complex self-organizing system that is subject to both internal and contextual constraints. Although there has been interest in examining bimanual development throughout the lifespan, few data exist relative to the bimanual activity of children between 1 and 4 years of age. The study reported here represents an initial effort to address this gap. Twenty-seven children who were either 12, 18 or 24 months old were videotaped while drumming with sticks on a plastic drum. Two independent observers recorded bout length as well as number and phase relation of movement cycles within bouts. Kinematic analysis provided more detailed information about the timing and form of children's activity. Results indicate that bimanual drumming becomes preferred over unimanual drumming by 2 years of age, that the proportions of different phase relations exhibited by children change between 1 and 2 years of age, and that the behavior appears to go through periods of stability and variability within this age range. These results are discussed in the context of the child's physical development and interactions with the environment during this period.     

Heterogeneity in ADHD: Neurocognitive predictors of peer,family, and academic functioning

Childhood attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is associated with impairments in peer, family, and academic functioning. Although impairment is required for diagnosis, children with ADHD vary significantly in the areas in which they demonstrate clinically significant impairment. However, relatively little is known about the mechanisms and processes underlying these individual differences. The current study examined neurocognitive predictors of heterogeneity in peer, family, and academic functioning in a well-defined sample of 44 children with ADHD aged 8–13 years (M = 10.31, SD = 1.42; 31 boys, 13 girls; 81% Caucasian). Reliable change analysis indicated that 98% of the sample demonstrated objectively-defined impairment on at least one assessed outcome measure; 65% were impaired in two or all three areas of functioning. ADHD children with quantifiable deficits in academic success and family functioning performed worse on tests of working memory (d = 0.68 to 1.09), whereas children with impaired parent-reported social functioning demonstrated slower processing speed (d = 0.53). Dimensional analyses identified additional predictors of peer, family, and academic functioning. Working memory abilities were associated with individual differences in all three functional domains, processing speed predicted social functioning, and inhibitory control predicted family functioning. These results add to a growing literature implicating neurocognitive abilities not only in explaining behavioral differences between ADHD and non-ADHD groups, but also in the substantial heterogeneity in ecologically-valid functional outcomes associated with the disorder.