The cocktail party effect in infants

Most speech research with infants occurs in quiet laboratory rooms with no outside distractions. However, in the real world, speech directed to infants often occurs in the presence of other competing acoustic signals. To learn language, infants need to attend to their caregiver’s speech even under less than ideal listening conditions. We examined 7.5-month-old infants’ abilities to selectively attend to a female talker’s voice when a male voice was talking simultaneously. In three experiments, infants heard a target voice repeating isolated words while a distractor voice spoke fluently at one of three different intensities. Subsequently, infants heard passages produced by the target voice containing either the familiar words or novel words. Infants listened longer to the familiar words when the target voice was 10 dB or 5 dB more intense than the distractor, but not when the two voices were equally intense. In a fourth experiment, the assignment of words and passages to the familiarization and testing phases was reversed so that the passages and distractors were presented simultaneously during familiarization, and the infants were tested on the familiar and unfamiliar isolated words. During familiarization, the passages were 10 dB more intense than the distractors. The results suggest that this may be at the limits of what infants at this age can do in separating two different streams of speech. In conclusion, infants have some capacity to extract information from speech even in the face of a competing acoustic voice.     

Age differences in retention of fixed-interval responding: memory or habitation effects?

Long-term retention of fixed-interval curvature as an index of recall memory which is relatively free of retrieval cues was examined in younger and older rats. Previous research on free-operant behavior in younger and older rats showing within-session decrements in behavior of older rats and within-session increments in younger rats suggested that the results of recall memory tests would depend upon the duration of the test session and the point within the session where data were collected. Consistent with such expectations, recall of fixed-interval curvature was poorer in older rats when data from late in the test session or data averaged over the entire 45-min session were used, but the opposite finding, numerically better retention in the older rats, occurred when data from the earliest part of the test session were used. The results suggest that age-related performance differences from which age-related memory differences are inferred may be confounded by other age-related effects upon performance which have nothing to do with memory.     

An empirical investigation of Shneidman's formulations regarding suicide

This study of suicide notes involved the deduction of 50 protocol sentences that reflected important aspects of Shneidman's formulations regarding suicide. Independent judges noted the incidence of contents corresponding to the protocol sentences in 33 genuine and 33 simulated notes. Statements that were found significantly and more frequently in genuine notes included the following: the experience of adult trauma such as a calamitous relationship; a rejection; the withdrawal of a significant person resulting in despair; perceiving another as dooming one to the suicide; expressions of ambivalence; feelings of love, hate and other emotions; feelings of helplessness, pessimism and emotional confusion; appearing to be intoxicated by one's overpowering emotions and constricted perceptions; and the communications appearing to have unconscious implications. Statements of "egression" and more logical reasoning were more characteristic of the simulated notes. A frequency count in the genuine notes indicated that many protocol sentences were also very predictive of the content. Implications of the results are discussed.     

THE PLACE OF FAITH IN A WORLD OF FACT

Abstract. The relation of religion and science is presented in terms of the interrelationship of domains generated within a reflexive real world concept by status assignment. The domain of religion is articulated by the concepts of ultimacy, totality, and eternity, which are boundary conditions on all status assignments. The domain of science is a status assignment, that of determining the facts and constraints of the real world, and is articulated by the concepts of empiricism, objectivity, and order. The interrelationship of domains is illustrated by examining the concepts of order, disorder, entropy, evil, freedom, creation, and resurrection.     

Influence of subject and interviewer characteristics on the reliability of young adults' self-reports of drinking

The influence of subject and interviewer characteristics on the reliability of self-reports of alcohol consumption among young adults was investigated. Data were gathered from black and white college students of both sexes (N's=24) using a time-line procedure. The results snowed that these young adults provided highly reliable self-reports regarding their use of alcohol. Test-retest correlations for a criterion interval of 90 days were .96, .93, and .97 for the numbers of abstinent, moderate-drinking, and heavy-drinking days, respectively. Analyses also showed that white female subjects generally provided more reliable reports of abstinent and heavy-drinking days and that white female interviewers gathered more reliable reports across the three drinking disposition categories. These findings suggest that nonalcoholic young adults' retrospective reports of their drinking behavior can be reliably assessed using the time-line methodology. Future research is required to determine the validity of these self-reports and to understand the differential influence of subject and interviewer characteristics on the levels of reliability found.     

The pain behavior scale: Modification and validation for outpatient use

The present study investigated the validity of an inpatient pain behavior rating scale modified for outpatient use. A series of 43 consecutive outpatients referred for evaluation of chronic pain was examined using the Pain Behavior Scale (PBS) and other psychometric instruments. Analyses revealed significantly higher Pain Behavior Scale scores for low back and multiple pain-site groups. The results also indicated a high degree of internal consistency of the scale. A multiple regression analysis, predicting observed pain behavior from reported pain behavior, indicated that decreased activity accounted for 32% of the variance in the PBS score. A similar regression for pain experience found that the pain level and the sensory scale score on the McGill Pain Questionnaire accounted for 39% of the PBS variance. Psychological characteristics including disease conviction, self-control, depression, and anxiety explained 45% of the variability in the PBS score. Thus, the scale is related to pain intensity, interference with activities, and a variety of psychological characteristics. The scale provides a measure of observable pain behavior that is also relatively independent of these clinical data sources. The Pain Behavior Scale as modified for outpatient use provides a brief index of pain behavior with potential use in the comprehensive evaluation of the pain patient.     

Immediate and long-term retention of basic-level categories in 24-month-olds

This study assessed the effect of presenting single versus multiple exemplars of basic-level categories on 24-month-olds' long-term memory for categorical information. Sixty-four infants were tested in a paired-comparison recognition memory paradigm immediately and one week after familiarization with basic-level categories. Infants were randomly assigned to one of two familiarization conditions and one of two test conditions. In one familiarization condition (Varied Exemplar), they briefly viewed four different exemplars of each of 16 basic-level categories. In the other familiarization condition (Single Exemplar), they viewed only one instance of each category on four different trials. Test trials consisted of either an exemplar seen during familiarization (Familiar-Exemplar Test) or novel intracategory exemplar (Unfamiliar-Exemplar Test) paired with a stimulus from a novel category. Both immediately following familiarization and one week later, infants looked longer at test stimuli from the novel category irrespective of familiarization or test condition.