Auditory event perception: The source—perception loop for posture in human gait

There is a small but growing literature on the perception of natural acoustic events, but few attempts have been made to investigate complex sounds not systematically controlled within a laboratory setting. The present study investigates listeners’ ability to make judgments about the posture (upright—stooped) of the walker who generated acoustic stimuli contrasted on each trial. We use a comprehensive three-stage approach to event perception, in which we develop a solid understanding of the source event and its sound properties, as well as the relationships between these two event stages. Developing this understanding helps both to identify the limitations of common statistical procedures and to develop effective new procedures for investigating not only the two information stages above, but also the decision strategies employed by listeners in making source judgments from sound. The result is a comprehensive, ultimately logical, but not necessarily expected picture of both the source—sound—perception loop and the utility of alternative research tools.     

Science And Faith: New Books with the Same Scepticism

Books reviewed in this article:
Richard A. Lee Jr., Science, the Singular, and the Question of Theology
Andrew P. Porter, By the Waters of Naturalism: Theology Perplexed Among the Sciences
W. Mark Richardson, Robert John Russell, Philip Clayton, and Kirk Wegter–McNelly (eds), Science and the Spiritual Quest: New Essays by Leading Scientists
W. Mark Richardson and Gordy Slack (eds), Faith in Science: Scientists Search for Truth     

Treatment Foster Care in a System of Care: Sequences and Correlates of Residential Placements

We examined Treatment Foster Care (TFC) in residential trajectories for youth with psychiatric disorders and aggressive behavior. We analyzed residential placements of a statewide sample of youth during the 12 months preceding and following admission to TFC. Prior to TFC, the majority of youth were residing in more restrictive settings (group homes or residential treatment). Two-thirds of youth remained in TFC throughout the follow-up year. Of those who left, nearly half returned home, and slightly fewer were discharged to group homes. By the end of the 12-month follow-up period, rates of group home use were similar to those seen in the pre-TFC period. Movement out of TFC during the year was associated with being older at placement and with increased problem behavior (particularly externalizing behaviors). TFC serves as a step-down placement for a substantial number of youth. However, this is not the only way it is used, and models based on short-term transitioning or reunification with families may not be widely implemented or relevant in practice. Additional research is needed to understand current functions of TFC in residential trajectories and to maximize its utility in systems of care.     

The generalization of deferred imitation in enculturated chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)

Deferred imitation of object-related actions and generalization of imitation to similar but not identical tasks was assessed in three human-reared (enculturated) chimpanzees, ranging in age from 5 to 9 years. Each ape displayed high levels of deferred imitation and only slightly lower levels of generalization of imitation. The youngest two chimpanzees were more apt to generalize the model's actions when they had displayed portions of the target behaviors at baseline, consistent with the idea that learning is more likely to occur when working within the "zone of proximal development." We argue that generalization of imitation is the best evidence to date of imitative learning in chimpanzees. Electronic Publication     

Quantity judgments and individuation: evidence that mass nouns count

Three experiments explored the semantics of the mass-count distinction in young children and adults. In Experiments 1 and 2, the quantity judgments of participants provided evidence that some mass nouns refer to individuals, as such. Participants judged one large portion of stuff to be "more" than three tiny portions for substance-mass nouns (e.g. mustard, ketchup), but chose according to number for count nouns (e.g. shoes, candles) and object-mass nouns (e.g. furniture, jewelry). These results suggest that some mass nouns quantify over individuals, and that therefore reference to individuals does not distinguish count nouns from mass nouns. Thus, Experiments 1 and 2 failed to support the hypothesis that there exist one-to-one mappings between mass-count syntax and semantics for either adults or young children. In Experiment 3, it was found that for mass-count flexible terms (e.g. string, stone) participants based quantity judgments on number when the terms were used with count syntax, but on total amount of stuff when used with mass syntax. Apparently, the presence of discrete physical objects in a scene (e.g. stones) is not sufficient to permit quantity judgments based on number. It is proposed that object-mass nouns (e.g. furniture) can be used to refer to individuals due to lexically specified grammatical features that normally occur in count syntax. Also, we suggest that children learning language parse words that refer to individuals as count nouns unless given morpho-syntactic and referential evidence to the contrary, in which case object-mass nouns are acquired.     

Bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) calves appear to model their signature whistles on the signature whistles of community members

Bottlenose dolphins are unusual among non-human mammals in their ability to learn new sounds. This study investigates the importance of vocal learning in the development of dolphin signature whistles and the influence of social interactions on that process. We used focal animal behavioral follows to observe six calves in Sarasota Bay, Fla., recording their social associations during their first summer, and their signature whistles during their second. The signature whistles of five calves were determined. Using dynamic time warping (DTW) of frequency contours, the calves signature whistles were compared to the signature whistles of several sets of dolphins: their own associates, the other calves associates, Tampa Bay dolphins, and captive dolphins. Whistles were considered similar if their DTW similarity score was greater than those of 95% of the whistle comparisons. Association was defined primarily in terms of time within 50 m of the mother/calf pair. On average, there were six dolphins with signature whistles similar to the signature whistles of each of the calves. These were significantly more likely to be Sarasota Bay resident dolphins than non-Sarasota dolphins, and (though not significantly) more likely to be dolphins that were within 50 m of the mother and calf less than 5% of the time. These results suggest that calves may model their signature whistles on the signature whistles of members of their community, possibly community members with whom they associate only rarely.     

Functional connectivity during working memory maintenance

Neurophysiological experiments with monkeys have demonstrated that working memory (WM) is associated with persistent neural activity in multiple brain regions, such as the prefrontal cortex (PFC), the parietal cortex, and posterior unimodal association areas. WM maintenance is believed to require the coordination of these brain regions, which do not function in isolation but, rather, interact to maintain visual percepts that are no longer present in the environment. However, single-unit physiology studies and traditional univariate analyses of functional brain imaging data cannot evaluate interactions between distant brain regions, and so evidence of regional integration during WM maintenance is largely indirect. In this study, we utilized a recently developed multivariate analysis method that allows us to explore functional connectivity between brain regions during the distinct stages of a delayed face recognition task. To characterize the neural network mediating the on-line maintenance of faces, the fusiform face area (FFA) was defined as a seed and was then used to generate whole-brain correlation maps. A random effects analysis of the correlation data revealed a network of brain regions exhibiting significant correlations with the FFA seed during the WM delay period. This maintenance network included the dorsolateral and ventrolateral PFC, the premotor cortex, the intraparietal sulcus, the caudate nucleus, the thalamus, the hippocampus, and occipitotemporal regions. These findings support the notion that the coordinated functional interaction between nodes of a widely distributed network underlies the active maintenance of a perceptual representation.     

Validity of the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q) in screening for eating disorders in community samples

In order to examine the concurrent and criterion validity of the questionnaire version of the Eating Disorders Examination (EDE-Q), self-report and interview formats were administered to a community sample of women aged 18-45 (n = 208). Correlations between EDE-Q and EDE subscales ranged from 0.68 for Eating Concern to 0.78 for Shape Concern. Scores on the EDE-Q were significantly higher than those of the EDE for all subscales, with the mean difference ranging from 0.25 for Restraint to 0.85 for Shape Concern. Frequency of both objective bulimic episodes (OBEs) and subjective bulimic episodes (SBEs) was significantly correlated between measures. Chance-corrected agreement between EDE-Q and EDE ratings of the presence of OBEs was fair, while that for SBEs was poor. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, based on a sample of 13 cases, indicated that a score of 2.3 on the global scale of the EDE-Q in conjunction with the occurrence of any OBEs and/or use of exercise as a means of weight control, yielded optimal validity coefficients (sensitivity = 0.83, specificity = 0.96, positive predictive value = 0.56). A stepwise discriminant function analysis yielded eight EDE-Q items which best distinguished cases from non-cases, including frequency of OBEs, use of exercise as a means of weight control, use of self-induced vomiting, use of laxatives and guilt about eating. The EDE-Q has good concurrent validity and acceptable criterion validity. The measure appears well-suited to use in prospective epidemiological studies.     

The developing constraints on parsing decisions: the role of lexical-biases and referential scenes in child and adult sentence processing

Two striking contrasts currently exist in the sentence processing literature. First, whereas adult readers rely heavily on lexical information in the generation of syntactic alternatives, adult listeners in world-situated eye-gaze studies appear to allow referential evidence to override strong countervailing lexical biases (Tanenhaus, Spivey-Knowlton, Eberhard, and Sedivy, 1995). Second, in contrast to adults, children in similar listening studies fail to use this referential information and appear to rely exclusively on verb biases or perhaps syntactically based parsing principles (Trueswell, Sekerina, Hill, and Logrip, 1999). We explore these contrasts by fully crossing verb bias and referential manipulations in a study using the eye-gaze listening technique with adults (Experiment 1) and five-year-olds (Experiment 2). Results indicate that adults combine lexical and referential information to determine syntactic choice. Children rely exclusively on verb bias in their ultimate interpretation. However, their eye movements reveal an emerging sensitivity to referential constraints. The observed changes in information use over ontogenetic time best support a constraint-based lexicalist account of parsing development, which posits that highly reliable cues to structure, like lexical biases, will emerge earlier during development and more robustly than less reliable cues.