An investigation of spatial representation of pitch in individuals with congenital amusia

Spatial representation of pitch plays a central role in auditory processing. However, it is unknown whether impaired auditory processing is associated with impaired pitch–space mapping. Experiment 1 examined spatial representation of pitch in individuals with congenital amusia using a stimulus–response compatibility (SRC) task. For amusic and non-amusic participants, pitch classification was faster and more accurate when correct responses involved a physical action that was spatially congruent with the pitch height of the stimulus than when it was incongruent. However, this spatial representation of pitch was not as stable in amusic individuals, revealed by slower response times when compared with control individuals. One explanation is that the SRC effect in amusics reflects a linguistic association, requiring additional time to link pitch height and spatial location. To test this possibility, Experiment 2 employed a colour-classification task. Participants judged colour while ignoring a concurrent pitch by pressing one of two response keys positioned vertically to be congruent or incongruent with the pitch. The association between pitch and space was found in both groups, with comparable response times in the two groups, suggesting that amusic individuals are only slower to respond to tasks involving explicit judgments of pitch.     

A Match Made in Heaven or Down Under? The Effectiveness of Matching Visual and Verbal Horizons in Advertising

According to construal level theory, consumers’ processing styles become more abstract as psychological distance increases, but they grow more concrete when psychological distance decreases. This study provides evidence that panoramic pictures in which the horizon appears in the lower versus upper part of the frame trigger a different level of construal. As such, this study raises a novel source of construal. In addition, this study shows that when both visual (e.g., horizon height) and verbal (e.g., temporal benefit) advertising elements induce the same level of construal, advertising effectiveness increases. This work differs from previous research in that it focuses on the construal fit evoked by two advertisement features rather than a fit in construal between an external stimulus and the internal mindset of the consumer.     

Acceptable timing error at ball-bat impact for different pitches and its implications for baseball skills

In baseball hitting, batters need high precision timing control to hit the ball with bat’s sweet spot. Knowing the acceptable range of timing error for hitting the ball in the aimed direction for various pitch types is helpful to understand whether the cause of the batter's mis-hit is a spatial or temporal error and highlight the motor skills required by the batter. The purpose of this study was to determine the acceptable timing error in different baseball pitches and the impact characteristics of mis-hits. Twenty-six high school baseball players hit a ball launched from a pitching machine with three types of pitches: fastballs, curveballs, and slowballs. We recorded the three-dimensional behavior of the ball, bat, and human body (pelvis) using an optical motion capture system. We then defined the optimal impact location based on timing accuracy, and determined the acceptable range of timing error by the interactive relationship between the horizontal orientation of the bat’s long axis at the time of ball impact and the horizontal direction of the batted ball. The ±30° width in the horizontal direction of the batted ball was set as the precondition for the tolerance of timing. The acceptable timing error was ±7.9 ms for fastballs, ±10.7 ms for curveballs, and ±10.7 ms for slowballs, and the optimal timing for outside pitches was approximately 10 ms later than that for inside pitches. The timing error was also explained 38.1% by variation in the impact location along the long axis of the bat (R² = 0.381, P < 0.001) and was minimized at a position close to the bat’s sweet spot. These results suggest that the optimal impact location and acceptable range of timing error depend on the pitching course and speed and that timing accuracy is essential to achieve the spatial accuracy required to hit the ball at the bat’s sweet spot.     

颈椎单间隙融合后椎间高度的改变对邻近节段退变的影响

本文探讨颈前路单间隙融合术后该节段的椎间高度改变对相邻节段椎间盘退变所产生的不同影响。将颈前路单节段融合术后的患者78例按融合高度的不同分为三组,通过测量上位节段的椎间高度、活动度及椎体间滑移进行比较,结果显示融合后的椎间高度达到正常水平时的退变较慢,增大或减小均会加速邻近椎间盘的退变。     

A cross-cultural study of infant temperament: Predicting preschool effortful control in the United States of America and Russia

Effortful control (EC) has been conceptualized as a dimension of temperament related to self-regulation and associated with the development of executive attention skills. Research has focused on documenting the development of EC, but there has been little systematic study of its precursors. The present study was designed to examine infant temperament characteristics as potential predictors of EC in the toddler/preschool period across two countries: Russia and the USA. Specifically, contributions of negative emotionality (NE), positive affectivity/surgency (PAS), and regulatory capacity/orienting (RCO) measured in the first year of life were expected to explain EC in the preschool period. For the US sample, toddler NE, infant PAS and RCO explained significant amounts of EC variance, whereas infant RCO was the single significant predictor of later EC in the Russian sample. Analyses with the combined sample provided an opportunity to evaluate temperament-by-culture interactions, one of which (PAS×Culture) reached statistical significance. Follow-up analyses indicated that higher levels of infant PAS were related to higher EC scores for US children only, whereas for the Russian youth preschool EC did not vary as a function of infant PAS. Results of this study support the importance of early appearing regulation in contributing to the development of EC and illustrate the value of cross-cultural longitudinal research.     

Do you see what I’m singing? Visuospatial movement biases pitch perception

The nature of the connection between musical and spatial processing is controversial. While pitch may be described in spatial terms such as “high” or “low”, it is unclear whether pitch and space are associated but separate dimensions or whether they share representational and processing resources. In the present study, we asked participants to judge whether a target vocal note was the same as (or different from) a preceding cue note. Importantly, target trials were presented as video clips where a singer sometimes gestured upward or downward while singing that target note, thus providing an alternative, concurrent source of spatial information. Our results show that pitch discrimination was significantly biased by the spatial movement in gesture, such that downward gestures made notes seem lower in pitch than they really were, and upward gestures made notes seem higher in pitch. These effects were eliminated by spatial memory load but preserved under verbal memory load conditions. Together, our findings suggest that pitch and space have a shared representation such that the mental representation of pitch is audiospatial in nature.     

Everyday executive function in standard-risk acute lymphoblastic leukemia survivors

Although absolute pitch (AP) is a rare skill in typical development, individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) are often referred to as possessing this musical ability. However, there is paucity of research on the topic. In this article, 2 studies were conducted to evaluate AP in WS. In Study 1, seven musically trained individuals with WS, 14 musically trained typically developing controls matched for chronological age, and 2 experienced musicians with AP completed a pitch-identification task. Although the task was a classical assessment of AP, it required participants to have musical knowledge, and the availability and accessibility of musically trained individuals with WS is very low. In Study 2, a paradigm suitable for evaluating AP in individuals without musical training was used, which made it possible to evaluate a larger group of participants with WS. A pitch memory test for isolated tones was presented to 27 individuals with WS, 54 typically developing peers matched for chronological age, and the 2 musicians with AP. Both individuals with WS and their controls obtained low results in the two studies. They showed an arbitrary pattern of response, and their performance was far from that of musicians with AP. Therefore, participants with WS did not appear to possess AP. Unlike what is usually claimed, results suggest that AP is not a remarkable ability in WS and that, as in the typically developing population, this musical ability is also rare in individuals with WS.     

Absolute pitch in boreal chickadees and humans: Exceptions that test a phylogenetic rule

This research examined generality of the phylogenetic rule that birds discriminate frequency ranges more accurately than mammals. Human absolute pitch chroma possessors accurately tracked transitions between frequency ranges. Independent tests showed that they used note naming (pitch chroma) to remap the tones into ranges; neither possessors nor nonpossessors were accurate at octave (pitch height) naming. Boreal chickadees discriminated frequency ranges less accurately than other birds; they tracked reward across several lower frequency ranges but failed at frequencies over 4000 Hz. The results revealed the error of describing species differences solely in terms of their discrimination of frequency ranges. Exceptions to the rule disappear when the rule is restated in terms of underlying mechanism: birds are superior to mammals in the ability to use absolute pitch height perception to discriminate pitches and ranges of pitches.     

《黄帝内经》二十五音和经络调理的再思考

通过古琴的启发,对2000多年传抄文字的考量,根据当代物理声学对声音频率的定律,更正了既往研究的错误,最终发现《黄帝内经》二十五音的排列和经络调理之间存在严谨的客观规律,声学部分与当代物理学完全相同,从而为中医听声辨痛提供了一个坚实的科学基础。     

Contribution of upper trunk rotation to hand forward-backward movement and propulsion in front crawl strokes

The study aims to test three hypotheses: (a) the rotation of the upper trunk consists of roll, pitch and yaw of frequencies harmonic to the stroke frequency of the front crawl stroke, (b) the rotation of the upper trunk generates back-and-forth movements of the shoulders, which enhances the movements of the stroking arms, and (c) the angular velocities of roll, pitch and yaw are associated with hand propulsion (HP). Front crawl strokes performed by twenty male swimmers were measured with a motion capture system. The roll, pitch and yaw angles about the three orthogonal axes embedded in the upper trunk were determined as three sequential Cardan angles and their angular velocities were determined as the three respective components of the angular velocity. HP and the drag and lift components of HP (HP_D and HP_L) were estimated by the hand positions and the data from twelve pressure sensors attached on hands. The roll, pitch, and yaw angles were altered in frequencies harmonic to the stroke frequency during the front crawl stroke. Shoulders alternately moved back and forth due to the upper trunk rotation. In the pull phase the angular velocity of roll was correlated with HP_L (r = −0.62, p = 0.004). Based on the back-and-forth movements of the shoulders and roll motion relative to a hand movement, the arm-stroke technique of the front crawl swimming was discussed in terms of increasing the hand velocity and HP.