Reaction and movement times in men of different ages: a population study

Tests of psychomotor and motor speed at different levels of complexity were studied in random samples of men aged 31 to 35, 51 to 55, and 71 to 75 yr. The study was performed as a part of a larger research project on health and functional aging. Analyses indicated significantly slower responses among older men at all levels of test complexity (maximal knee extension velocity, tapping rate, simple and choice reaction and movement times). There were marked differences both between the youngest and the middle-aged groups and between the middle-aged and the oldest groups. Within the age groups high psychomotor and motor speed were associated with a favourable functioning of certain senses (vibration sensitivity and postural balance), with a high isometric muscular force, and with a high directly assessed aerobic capacity. The most important covariants of the speed functions within the age groups were, however, cognitive performance, length of education, and perceived health.     

Sensory-substitution systems for the sensorily impaired: the case for the use of tactile-vibratory stimulation

A case is made for the use of tactile-vibratory stimulation in devising sensory-substitution systems for sensorily impaired humans.     

Does placebo response mediate runner's high?

It is proposed that runner's high is mediated by increased endorphin release as induced by placebo responses arising from subjective expectancies and setting.     

Acoustic evidence of aberrant velocities in stutterers' fluent speech

Movement rates of formant frequencies and the extents of articulatory change were spectrographically analyzed in the fLuent (VCV) utterances of 20 stutterers and nonstutterers. The velocities of articulator movement throughout the first vowel and velocities into the second vowel were not significantly different for the two groups. These mean rates of movement, although nonsignificant, were slower in stutterers and slightly more variable, and the extent of articulator movement was comparable. These results do not support the contentions that stutterers use coarticulatory movements that are too rapid or that stutterers have a poorer competence for rapid coordination of speech movements. The rationales of rate-control treatment methods to slow coarticulatory movements in stutterers need to be reexamined.     

Gifted children and Visual Aural Digit Span test performance

The performance of 81 gifted elementary students on the Visual Aural Digit Span test is discussed. The students generally showed advanced performance from Grade 1 through Grade 5 and from age 7-0 yr. through 11-11 yr. Performance at Grade 6 and the 12-0 to 12-11-yr.-old levels were generally at age-expected levels and were probably restricted due to the test's limited ceiling. Tables of means across grade and age and needs for further research are also presented.     

Test of the neurolinguistic programming hypothesis that eye-movements relate to processing imagery

Bandler and Grinder's hypothesis that eye-movements reflect sensory processing was examined. 28 volunteers first memorized and then recalled visual, auditory, and kinesthetic stimuli. Changes in eye-positions during recall were videotaped and categorized by two raters into positions hypothesized by Bandler and Grinder's model to represent visual, auditory, and kinesthetic recall. Planned contrast analyses suggested that visual stimulus items, when recalled, elicited significantly more upward eye-positions and stares than auditory and kinesthetic items. Auditory and kinesthetic items, however, did not elicit more changes in eye-position hypothesized by the model to represent auditory and kinesthetic recall, respectively.     

Maps between some different kinds of contraction function: The finite case

In some recent papers, the authors and Peter Gärdenfors have defined and studied two different kinds of formal operation, conceived as possible representations of the intuitive process of contracting a theory to eliminate a proposition. These are partial meet contraction (including as limiting cases full meet contraction and maxichoice contraction) and safe contraction. It is known, via the representation theorem for the former, that every safe contraction operation over a theory is a partial meet contraction over that theory. The purpose of the present paper is to study the relationship more finely, by seeking an explicit map between the component orderings involved in each of the two kinds of contraction. It is shown that at least in the finite case a suitable map exists, with the consequence that the relational, transitively relational, and antisymmetrically relational partial meet contraction functions form identifiable subclasses of the safe contraction functions, over any theory finite modulo logical equivalence. In the process of constructing the map, as the composition of four simple transformations, mediating notions of bottom and top contraction are introduced. The study of the infinite case remains open.