Prior experience with negative spectral correlations promotes information integration during auditory category learning

Complex sounds vary along a number of acoustic dimensions. These dimensions may exhibit correlations that are familiar to listeners due to their frequent occurrence in natural sounds—namely, speech. However, the precise mechanisms that enable the integration of these dimensions are not well understood. In this study, we examined the categorization of novel auditory stimuli that differed in the correlations of their acoustic dimensions, using decision bound theory. Decision bound theory assumes that stimuli are categorized on the basis of either a single dimension (rule based) or the combination of more than one dimension (information integration) and provides tools for assessing successful integration across multiple acoustic dimensions. In two experiments, we manipulated the stimulus distributions such that in Experiment 1, optimal categorization could be accomplished by either a rule-based or an information integration strategy, while in Experiment 2, optimal categorization was possible only by using an information integration strategy. In both experiments, the pattern of results demonstrated that unidimensional strategies were strongly preferred. Listeners focused on the acoustic dimension most closely related to pitch, suggesting that pitch-based categorization was given preference over timbre-based categorization. Importantly, in Experiment 2, listeners also relied on a two-dimensional information integration strategy, if there was immediate feedback. Furthermore, this strategy was used more often for distributions defined by a negative spectral correlation between stimulus dimensions, as compared with distributions with a positive correlation. These results suggest that prior experience with such correlations might shape short-term auditory category learning.     

Does response mode affect amount recalled or the magnitude of the testing effect?

The testing effect is the finding that retrieval practice can enhance recall on future tests. One unanswered question is whether first-test response mode (writing or speaking the answer) affects final-test performance (and whether final-test response mode itself matters). An additional unsettled issue is whether written and oral recall lead to differences in the amount recalled. In three experiments, we examined these issues: whether subjects can recall more via typing or speaking; whether typing or speaking answers on a first test can lead to better final-test performance (and whether an interaction occurs with final-test response mode) and whether any form of overt response leads to better final-test performance as compared to covert retrieval (thinking of the answer but not producing it). Subjects studied paired associates; took a first test by typing, speaking, or thinking about responses; and then took a second test in which the answers were either spoken or typed. The results revealed few differences between typing and speaking during recall, and no difference in the size of the testing effect on the second test. Furthermore, an initial covert retrieval yielded roughly the same benefit to future test performance as did overt retrieval. Thus, the testing effect was quite robust across these manipulations. The practical implication for learning is that covert retrieval provides as much benefit to later retention as does overt retrieval and that both can be effective study strategies.     

A Little Goes a Long Way: The Impact of Distal Social Support on Community Integration and Recovery of Individuals with Psychiatric Disabilities

Although an extensive body of literature highlights the important role of social support for individuals with psychiatric disabilities, definitions of support tend to be restricted—focusing on intimate relationships such as friend and family networks and ignoring the role of casual relationships existing naturally in the community. This mixed-methods study of 300 consumers of mental health services in the Southeastern US aims to better understand the impact of community supports, termed distal supports, on community integration and recovery from mental illness. Qualitative content analysis, tests of group mean differences, and hierarchical linear regression analyses revealed the following: (1) participants primarily reported receiving tangible support (e.g., free medication/discounted goods) from distal supports rather than emotional support (e.g., displays of warmth/affection) or informational support (e.g., provision of advice); (2) women and older participants reported more distal supports than men or younger participants; and (3) distal supports played a unique role in predicting community integration and recovery even after accounting for the influence of traditional support networks. Results highlight the importance of considering diverse types of social support in naturally occurring settings when designing treatment plans and interventions aimed at encouraging community participation and adaptive functioning for individuals with psychiatric disabilities.     

Gratitude,well-being and psychological distress among South African university students

This study investigated the associations between gratitude, measures of well-being, and indicators of psychological distress (depression and negative emotion) among South African university students. Data were collected from 198 first-year university students (female = 69.70%; mean age = 20.55 years, SD = 1.70 years) using measures of gratitude, flourishing, well-being, depression, and negative emotion. The results showed that gratitude is positively associated with measures of well-being, and inversely related to indicators of psychological distress. University-based support programmes should consider gratitude interventions to support student success.     

Conditioned suppression/avoidance as a procedure for testing hearing in birds: The domestic pigeon (Columba livia)

Although the domestic pigeon is commonly used in learning experiments, it is a notoriously difficult subject in auditory psychophysical experiments, even those in which it need only respond when it detects a sound. This is because pigeons tend to respond in the absence of sound—that is, they have a high false-positive rate—which makes it difficult to determine a pigeon’s audiogram. However, false positives are easily controlled in the method of conditioned suppression/avoidance, in which a pigeon is trained to peck a key to obtain food and to stop pecking whenever it detects a sound that signals impending electric shock. Here, we describe how to determine psychophysical thresholds in pigeons using a method of conditioned suppression in which avoidable shock is delivered through a bead chain wrapped around the base of a pigeon’s wings. The resulting audiogram spans the range from 2 to 8000 Hz; it falls approximately in the middle of the distribution of previous pigeon audiograms and supports the finding of Kreithen and Quine (Journal of Comparative Physiology 129:1–4, 1979) that pigeons hear infrasound.     

Motivation in Personal Construct Theory: A Conceptual Critique

Kelly's attempt to derive apparently motiwtional phenomena (hostility, guilt, etc.) solely from the confirmation or disconfirmation of personal constructs cannot adequately explain such phenomena. His account of hostility assumes that some beliefs are so resistant to change that the person seeks to compel confirmation of them; however, this resistance is incompatible with Kelly's own Choice Corollary. Anxiety is said to derive from the fact that disconfirmation would leave one's world in chaos, but “chaos” is shown to be an illogical concept. Humor, in turn, cannot be explained just by cognitive incongruity, since incongruity may as well lead to anxiety or hostility. Finally, guilt cannot be explained without reference to underlying fears of punishment and their rationalization in terms of supposedly objective moral concepts. Nevertheless, Kelly's Repertory Grid technique, supplemented by laddering, may be useful in indicating primary needs, moral convictions, and sources of anxiety.     

Inclusive infinity and radical particularity: Hegel,Hartshorne and Nishida

Three writers who utilize a similar metaphysics to understand the relationship between Ultimate Reality and conventional reality are compared. The metaphysics of what I call an inclusive Infinity is the common thread employed in comparing the thought of Hegel, Hartshorne and Nishida. I contrast the concept of inclusive Infinity with that of radical particularity and argue that people are private centers of conscious awareness who cannot be encompassed within an infinity or totality. Because of the individuality and uniqueness of particulars, there can be no absolutely inclusive Infinite.     

Aristotle on Pleasure and the Worst Form of Akrasia

The focus of this paper is Aristotle's solution to the problem inherited from Socrates: How could a man fail to restrain himself when he believes that what he desires is wrong? In NE 7 Aristotle attempts to reconcile the Socratic denial of akrasia with the commonly held opinion that people act in ways they know to be bad, even when it is in their power to act otherwise. This project turns out to be largely successful, for what Aristotle shows us is that if we distinguish between two ways of having knowledge (‘potentially’ and ‘actually’), the Socratic thesis can effectively account for a wide range of cases (collectively referred to here as ‘drunk-akrasia’) in which an agent acts contrary to his general knowledge of the Good, yet can still be said to ‘know’ in the qualified sense that his actions are wrong. However, Book 7 also shows that the Socratic account of akrasia cannot take us any farther than drunk-akrasia, for unlike drunk-akrasia, genuine akrasia cannot be reduced to a failure of knowledge. This agent knows in the unqualified sense that his actions are wrong. The starting-point of my argument is that Aristotle's explanation of genuine akrasia requires a different solution than the one found in NE 7 which relies on the distinction between qualified and unqualified ‘knowing’: genuinely akratic behaviour is due to the absence of an internal conflict that a desire for the ‘proper’ pleasures of temperance would create if he could experience them.