Generative theories in language and music descriptions

The style of a set of Swedish nursery tunes is described in terms of a generative rule system. A generative rule system producing melodically similar versions of an old Swedish folk song is also presented. Examples of melodies generated by these two rule systems are given.Both these rule systems are similar in several respects. Thus, the marking of the hierarchical constituent structure seems to be one of the important principles in composing simple melodies.The rule systems also show a number of similarities with the Chomsky & Halle (1968) generative phonology of English. For instance, the procedures used for deriving a stress contour from a tree diagram are almost identical. Moreover, in sentences as in melodies this stress, or prominence contour is of decisive importance to the generation of the surface structure, such as meter, harmony, and sequences of pitches. It is believed that such parallels between language and music reflect characteristics of man's perceptual and cognitive capacities.     

Obsessional-compulsive checking: Experimental replication and development

The purpose of this experiment was to resolve some inconclusive findings from an earlier study on the effects of compulsive checking rituals. Twelve obsessional-compulsive checkers carried out a provoking act followed by their compulsive checking ritual, in natural situations, under two conditions—E present and E absent. The provoking act produced subjective discomfort, tension, worry and anxiety; these feelings were reduced after completion of the checking ritual. Both the increases and post-ritual decreases in discomfort were more pronounced in the spontaneous occurrence condition (E absent). The results are consistent with the hypothesis that compulsive rituals serve to reduce discomfort.     

NOTE ON SIMULTANEOUS DISCRIMINATION OF VISUAL ATTRIBUTES

van der H eijden A. H. C. Note on simultaneous discrimination of visual attributes. Scand. J. Psychol ., 1972, 13 , 71–72.—A tachistoscopically presented stimulus, provided it is above threshold, results in a visual image with a minimum duration of about 250 msec. In experiments on visual information processing, therefore, the results must be interpreted in terms of 'effective stimulus duration' (exposure time and duration of visual image) rather than exposure time alone.     

Psychische und physische Reaktionen auf Geräusch verschiedener subjektiver Wertigkeit

Zusammenfassung In dieser Untersuchung wurde die Abhängigkeit der physischen und psychischen Komponenten der Lärmwirkung von der Wertigkeit des Lärms analysiert.Hierbei wurde physikalisch identischem Lärm einmal eine positive, einmal eine negative, einmal keine Valenz experimentell verliehen. Die Ergebnisse weisen in Richtung der gestellten Hypothesen. Die Verschiedenheit der emotionalen Valenz beeinflußt die Stellungnahme der Vp zu der Lärmsituation, sie beeinflußt das Ausmaß der durch den Lärm bewirkten Muskelspannung und das Ausmaß der durch den Lärm bewirkten Hörschwellenverschieung. Nach der Darstellung der verschiedenen Versuchsergebnisse wurden Spekulationen über eine mögliche psychologische Interpretation angestellt.

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Psychological and physiological reactions to noise of different subjective valence (TTS and EMG)

Summary The hypothesis is proposed that physiological and psychological reactions to noise are not independent from one another. 2 groups of Ss were exposed to an identical tape of interrupted white noise of 95 dB. For group A noise was the signal that they had made an error in a pseudo-tracking task; for the other group (B) the same noise was the signal that they were on target in the pseudo-tracking task. A third group (C) of Ss heard the same noise without any task.The dependent variables were: a) temporary threshold shift (TTS), b) muscle tension as measured by electromyography, c) subjective scaling of the amount of annoyance and disturbance induced by the noise and of the general sensitivity for noise of the S.Results: Ss who invest the noise with a positive emotional valence feel themselves less disturbed, less annoyed and in general less susceptible to noise than Ss who receive the same noise with negative valence.Muscle tension is highest for group A, less for group B, least for group C.The amount of TTS is dependent upon the valence of the noise: noise with negative valence results in a TTS of 18.1 dB, whereas noise of neutral or positive valence leads to a TTS of only 11.0 resp. 12.8 dB.The results are discussed in relation to noise research and to activation theory and detection theory.

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Diese Untersuchung entstand, als die beiden erstgenannten Verfasser am Psychologischen Institut der Freien Universität Berlin und H. Gummlich am Institut für Technische Akustik der Technischen Universität Berlin (Direktor: Prof. Dr.-Ing. L. Cremer), Lehrgebiet Geräuschbekämpfung (Prof. Dr. E. Lübcke) tätig waren. Wir danken Herrn Prof. Cremer dafür, daß er die Camera silenta seines Instituts und neben anderen Apparaturen das Békésy-Audiometer zur Verfügung gestellt hat. Herrn Prof. Lübcke danken wir für seinen wertvollen Rat. Die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft hat die Untersuchung großzügig unterstützt.     

Sequence influence on the organization of meaningless serial stimuli: economy after all

This article provides evidence for an extension of structural information theory, a theory which describes perceptual organization formally, into a more general theory of representation that takes the role of organizations obtained earlier into account. In eight experiments, subjects study series of colored dots. Each series contained 6-8 dots of different colors, and viewing time was between 400 ms and 60 s. In several experimental procedures, subjects recalled the series presented. The experiments systematically varied the economy of the organizations of the series as described by structural information theory as well as a number of aspects of the context in which the series were presented, like order of presentation of a series, order between the series, viewing span, viewing time, and recall procedure. Recall was influenced both by the economy as well as by the context. It is shown how the context influences the relative strength of the most economical organization as compared with rival, local organizations. A structured network model is presented that accounts for the influence of both the economy and the context.     

Loss of smell and taste within the scope of vitamin B 12 deficiency

The article deals with the case of a patient who had a partial gastrectomy and developed a vitamin B12 deficiency syndrome with anemia, myelopathy and complete loss of the senses of taste and smell. Regression of the symptoms followed liberal dosing with vitamin B12.     

Gender differences in geographical knowledge

In five experiments involving more than 1800 undergraduate students, males more accurately located places on maps of the United States or its various regions than did females. These gender differences could not be attributed to education, travel history, desire to travel, or in the amount of incidental exposure to several potential sources of geographic information in everyday life. Males performed more accurately than females on measures of egocentric and allocentric spatial orientation, but performance on these tasks was only weakly predictive of accuracy on tests of geographical knowledge. Since males and females learned the locations of places on an unfamiliar map at similar rates, regardless of whether such learning occurred under intentional or incidental instructions, gender differences in geographical knowledge cannot be attributed to differences in capacity to learn place locations on maps. An attentional hypothesis is proposed to account for the more accurate performance of males on tests of geographical knowledge.