Young infants’ perception of liquid coarticulatory influences on following stop consonants

Phonetic segments are coarticulated in speech. Accordingly, the articulatory and acoustic properties of the speech signal during the time frame traditionally identified with a given phoneme are highly context-sensitive. For example, due to carryover coarticulation, the front tongue-tip position for HI results in more fronted tongue-body contact for a /g/ preceded by /l/ than for a /g/ preceded by /r/. Perception by mature listeners shows a complementary sensitivity—when a synthetic /da/-/ga/ continuum is preceded by either /al/ or /ar/, adults hear more /g/s following HI rather than Irl. That is, some of the fronting information in the temporal domain of the stop is perceptually attributed to /l/ (Mann, 1980). We replicated this finding and extended it to a signaldetection test of discrimination with adults, using triads of disyllables. Three equidistant items from a /da/-/ga/ continuum were used preceded by /al/ and /ar/. In the identification test, adults had identified item ga5 as “ga”, and dal as “da”, following both /al/ and /ar/, whereas they identified the crucial item d/ga3 predominantly as “ga” after /al/ but as “da” after /ar/. In the discrimination test, they discriminated d/ga3 from dal preceded by /al/ but not /ar/; compatibly, they discriminated d/ga3 readily from ga5 preceded by /ar/ but poorly preceded by /al/. We obtained similar results with 4-month-old infants. Following habituation to either ald/ga3 or ard/ga3, infants heard either the corresponding ga5 or dal disyllable. As predicted, the infants discrimi-nated d/ga3 from dal following /al/ but not /ar/; conversely, they discriminated d/ga3 from ga5 following /ar/ but not /al/. The results suggest that prelinguistic infants disentangle consonant-consonant coarticulatory influences in speech in an adult-like fashion.     

Behavioral knowledge among direct care staff in an inpatient psychiatric setting

Despite demonstrations of the utility and cost effectiveness of behavioral programming, such techniques are not commonly employed in psychiatric inpatient settings. Several explanations for this have been proposed, including inadequate levels of training and competence in behavioral programming among prevalent treatment staff. This study employed a multiple choice inventory to assess behavioral knowledge among subjects representing several direct care disciplines commonly found in inpatient psychiatric settings. The results support assertions of relatively low levels of behavioral knowledge among disciplines that are most prevalent in such settings. The implications of these results for initiatives to enhance behavioral knowledge and skills are discussed.     

Configural biases and reversible figures: evidence of multilevel grouping effects

Four experiments sought to identify the processes underlying 2 classes of grouping effects that are readily produced with a hierarchical figure type known as ambiguous triangles. Previous work has shown that aligning small equilateral triangles in particular configurations can both facilitate and interfere with observers' ability to report the pointing direction of the individual triangles. We determined that selectively adapting the observer to low-frequency gratings of the same orientation as the aligned triangles markedly altered the interfering and facilitative effects of the global configuration only when an accuracy measure of performance was used. When a response latency measure was used, no effect of the same adaptation condition was found. Results are discussed in terms of multiple levels of grouping effects in the visual system and the differential sensitivity of these levels to basic neural adaptation.     

Cognition and Self-Control: Cognitive Control of Painful Sensory Input

Eighty Ss were first tested for base-level response to a pain-producing stimulus and then were re-tested on the same pain stimulus after receiving 1 of 8 experimental treatments. The 8 treatments were arranged in a 2 x 2 x 2 factorial design: presence or absence of hypnotic induction procedure; presence or absence of instructions for anesthesia; and presence or absence of demands for honest reports. Neither the hypnotic-induction procedure nor the demands for honesty affected the Ss'reports of the degree of pain experienced. The anesthesia instructions--"think of the hand as numb and insensitive as if it were a piece of rubber..."--produced an equal degree of pain reduction in hypnotic and non-hypnotic Ss and in Ss who were and those who were not exposed to demands for honesty. The results indicate that (a) Ss' reports of pain are less affected by demands for honesty and are more closely related to their actual experiences than has been previously assumed and (b) instructions which direct Ss to exercise cognitive control over painful sensory input are effective (with or without 'hypnosis') in reducing the experience of pain.     

Scented memories of literature

This study examined the effects on recall of story details of congruity or incongruity between the hedonic valence of literary texts and odours inhaled while reading them. During the reading session, 24 undergraduates (12 males and 12 females) read two passages involving positive subject matter and two with negative subject matter while sniffing pleasant or unpleasant odours in a within-subject fully counterbalanced design. Subjects rated their experience of each text on eleven 7-point scales. During the test session 48 hours later, subjects read a two-word title associated with each of the passages and inhaled the odour that was paired with it in the reading session. They also rated their experience on six of the scales that had been used during the reading session. Results showed that hedonic congruence between the passage and the odour fostered enhanced recall during the test session. The combination of positive subject matter and positive odour was reflected in more accurate recall of character details, while pairing negative subject matter and negative odour resulted in more accurate recall of setting details. Regression analysis showed that overall recall accuracy was increased by identifying with the characters in the stories and for passages that were found pleasing and personally meaningful. Consistent with the literature on implicit learning involving odours, recall accuracy varied inversely with perceived odour intensity. Implicit learning involving odours and literary passages is therefore fostered by unity in the reading experience.     

American pragmatism as a guide for professional ethical conduct for engineers

The ethical choices faced by engineers today are increasingly complex. Competing and conflicting ethical demands from clients, communities, employees, and personal objectives combine to suggest that engineers employ ethical approaches that are adaptive yet grounded in three concrete professional circumstances: first, that engineers apply unique professional skills in the service of a client, subject to protecting the public interest; second, that engineers advance the state of knowledge of their professional field through reflection, research, and sharing experience in journals and conferences, and third, that they develop new professionals by active mentoring. This paper examines five features of American pragmatism and suggests that its emphasis on specific, context-based ethical decision making can assist engineers in a postmodern setting. In particular, it considers the venues of interpersonal ethical choices, institutional ethical conflicts, and social choices that have ethical components. Pragmatism suggests that in such a complex ethical climate, there is a need for the co-evolution of judgment and action, for individual reflective judgment in particular situations, and for ceasing to search for a single, immutable principle for ethical choice. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the “Ethics and Social Responsibility in Engineering and Technology” meeting, New Orleans, 2003.