Auditory Long term Memory: Repetition Priming of Voice Recognition

Two experiments examined repetition priming in the recognition of famous voices. In Experiment 1, reaction times for fame decisions to famous voice samples were shorter than in an unprimed condition, when voices were primed by a different voice sample of the same person having been presented in an earlier phase of the experiment. No effect of voice repetition was observed for non-famous voices. In Experiment 2, it was investigated whether this priming effect is voice-specific or whether it is related to post-perceptual processes in person recognition. Recognizing a famous voice was again primed by having earlier heard a different voice sample of that person. Although an earlier exposure to that person's name did not cause any priming, there was some indication of priming following an earlier exposure to that person's face. Finally, earlier exposure to the identical voice sample (as compared to a different voice sample from the same person) caused a considerable bias towards responding 'famous'-i.e. performance benefits for famous but costs for nonfamous voices. The findings suggestthat (1) repetition priming invoice recognition primarily involves the activation of perceptual representations of voices, and (2) it is important to determine the conditions in which priming causes bias effects that need to be disentangled from performance benefits.     

A method for electronically monitoring the ambulatory activity of honeybees under dark conditions

An electronic apparatus using infrared beams for monitoring the movements of individual bees under dark conditions is described. The searching behavior of workers in an arena was monitored over 2-h periods. Mean ambulatory velocity for one bee over a distance of 100 mm was 45.6±1.51 mm/sec (n=45). Thigmokinesis and temporal activity patterns are illustrated.     

What does it mean to ‘live’ and ‘die’? A cross‐linguistic analysis of parent–child conversations in English and Indonesian

Previous work on children's intuitive knowledge about the natural world has documented their difficulty in acquiring an overarching concept of biological life that includes plants as well as humans and non‐human animals. It has also suggested that the acquisition of fundamental biological concepts like alive and die may be influenced by the language used to describe them, as evidenced by differences between English‐ and Indonesian‐speaking children's performance in tasks involving these concepts. Here, we examine one particularly important source of linguistic information available to children during this acquisition process: everyday conversations with their parents. We take a cross‐linguistic approach in analysing the evidence available to English‐ and Indonesian‐speaking children as they acquire meanings for words corresponding to the concepts alive and die . Our analysis illustrates that young children acquiring English and Indonesian are faced with distinct problems, but that parental input in both languages does little to support the acquisition of broad, inclusive biological concepts.     

Reducing STD/HIV Stigmatizing Attitudes Through Community Popular Opinion Leaders in Chinese Markets

Reducing STDs and HIV/AIDS incidence requires campaigns designed to change knowledge, attitudes, and practices of risky sexual behavior. In China, a significant obstacle to such changes is the stigma associated with these diseases. Thus 1 campaign intervention strategy is to train credible community leaders to discuss these issues in everyday social venues. This study tested the effectiveness of such an approach on reducing HIV/AIDS stigma, across 2 years, from a sample of over 4,500 market vendors, in 3 conditions. Results showed an increasing growth in market communication about intervention messages, and concomitant declines in stigmatizing attitudes, across time, with the greatest changes in community popular opinion leaders, significant changes in intervention nonopinion leaders, and little change in the control markets.     

Echoic memory processes in good and poor readers

Four experiments were conducted to determine whether echoic memory plays a role in differences between good and poor readers. The first two experiments used a suffix procedure in which the subject is read a list of digits with either a tone control or the word go appended to the list. For lists that exceeded the length of the subjects memory span by one digit (i.e., that avoided ceiling effects), the poor readers showed a larger decrement in the suffix condition than did the good readers. The third experiment was directed at the question of whether the duration of echoic memory is different for good and poor readers. Children shadowed words presented to one ear at a rate determined to give 75-85% shadowing accuracy. The items presented to the nonattended ear were words and an occasional digit. At various intervals after the presentation of the digit, a light signaled that the subject was to cease shadowing and attempt to recall any digit that had occurred in the nonattended ear recently. Whereas good and poor readers recalled the digit equally if tested immediately after presentation, the poor readers showed a faster decline in recall of the digit as retention interval increased. A fourth experiment was conducted to determine whether the differences in echoic memory were specific to speech stimuli or occurred at a more basic level of aural persistence. Bursts of white noise were separated by 9-400 ms of silence and the subject was to say whether there were one or two sounds presented. There were no differences in detectability functions for good and poor readers.