The effects of different intensity levels of background noise on dichotic listening to consonant-vowel syllables

It has previously been shown that the right ear advantage in dichotic listening to consonant-vowel syllables is affected if a background noise is presented at the same time as the dichotic stimuli. What is not known is, however, if there is also an effect of varying the intensity level of the background noise. We therefore presented conversation or traffic noise background noise simultaneously with the dichotic syllable stimuli to healthy adult subjects. The intensity of the background noises varied between 50-65 dB in steps of 5 dB. The results showed that the right ear correct reports decreased, while left ear correct reports increased as a consequence of increasing background noise intensity. The effects were also stronger for the right ear, and for the traffic background noise condition, particularly at the two highest intensity levels. The results are discussed in terms of alertness and attentional mechanisms.     

疼痛恐惧的形成及其对疼痛知觉的影响

脑岛、杏仁核是疼痛恐惧形成的重要神经网络中心。疼痛恐惧增强了慢性疼痛患者的疼痛知觉体验, 进而加剧抑郁、焦虑情绪和功能损伤程度。脑岛、杏仁核、前额皮层和前扣带回是疼痛恐惧影响疼痛知觉的重要神经基础。通过认知方法干预疼痛恐惧可以改善患者的抑郁、焦虑情绪, 减少功能损伤。未来研究应拓展疼痛恐惧的测量工具, 采用功能磁共振成像技术进一步揭示疼痛恐惧影响慢性疼痛患者疼痛知觉的神经机制。     

甲流了解程度、疫苗安全感知、接种行为及其影响机制

采用问卷调查的方法, 对甲流了解程度、疫苗安全感知、接种行为及其影响机制进行了研究, 并运用结构方程对提出的模型进行了验证和调整。结果表明：(1)民众对甲流疫情基本情况、疫苗接种要求和传播途径等方面有较高的了解程度, 但对预防措施和疫苗信息了解较少。(2)交流卷入对了解程度不存在显著影响; 而新闻卷入对了解程度有显著正向影响, 并且新闻卷入对感知疫苗安全程度的正向影响受到了解程度的部分中介。(3)感知甲流疫苗越安全, 越倾向于选择接种疫苗。(4)人格对疫苗的风险认知存在显著影响, 个人随和性(Agreeableness)程度越高, 则感知疫苗的安全程度越高, 而年龄和性别对其均没有显著影响。     

Graspability and object processing in infants

This review pursues the idea that a dual visual system approach is fruitful for interpreting work on infant cognition. We provide examples from the visual perception and cognition literature demonstrating that the potential graspability of stimuli typically used in infant studies influence how these stimuli are processed by the infant brain. Specifically, we argue that small, local, familiar and moving stimuli are more likely to be processed by the dorsal (how or action) stream of visual processing. In contrast, larger, stationary objects are likely to be processed by the ventral (what or perception) stream. This analysis clarifies apparently conflicting results in the literature.     

The influence of reasons on interpretations of probability forecasts

When providing a probability estimate for an event, experts often supply reasons that they expect will clarify and support that estimate. We investigated the possible unintended influence that these reasons might have on a listener's intuitive interpretation of the event's likelihood. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that people who read positive reasons for a doctor's probability estimate regarding a hypothetical surgery were more optimistic than those who read negative reasons for the identical estimate. Experiment 3 tested whether a doctor's failure forecast for a surgery would result in differing levels of pessimism when the potential risk was attributed to one complication that had a probability of 0.30 versus three complications that had a disjunctive probability of 0.30. Overall, the findings are consistent with the argument that a probability estimate, albeit numerically precise, can be flexibly interpreted at an intuitive level depending on the reasons that the forecaster provides as the basis for the estimate. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Is thinking an action?

I argue that entertaining a proposition is not an action. Such events do not have intentional explanations and cannot be evaluated as rational or not. In these respects they contrast with assertions and compare well with perceptual events. One can control what one thinks by doing something, most familiarly by reciting a sentence. But even then the event of entertaining the proposition is not an action, though it is an event one has caused to happen, much as one might cause oneself to see a book by looking at it. I also discuss how this may support the view that thinking about the world is a source of information about it.     

Shrinkage in the perceived duration of speech and tone by acoustic replacement1

Abstract: To investigate mechanisms for perceiving the duration of an auditory event, an effect of perceptual grouping upon perceived duration was studied psychophysically. In the first experiment, the perceived duration of a spoken word was measured under three conditions of acoustic continuity (i.e., (a) intact, (b) noise‐replaced, and (c) gap‐replaced) as a function of the duration of the target stimulus. Under the noise‐replaced condition, a portion of the target stimulus was physically replaced with a noise burst. Under the gap‐replaced condition, the replacement was made with a gap. The gap‐replacement resulted in a prominent shrinkage of the perceived duration. In the case of noise‐replacement, the amount of shrinkage was moderate but highly significant, although the word employed was perceived to be phonetically intact. Independent of this effect of replacement, the amount of shrinkage was also affected by the physical duration of the target stimulus. The second experiment tested an effect of noise replacement on the perceived duration of a tone burst. In this case, the noise replacement also shrunk the perceived duration of the non‐speech stimulus. This noise‐induced shrinkage could be regarded as being general for the auditory duration. The phenomenon is discussed in relation to a revised model for perceived duration.     

Swimming-induced taste aversion and its prevention by a prior history of swimming

In two experiments, the evidence showed that 20 min of forced swimming by rats caused aversion to a taste solution consumed before swimming. When one of two taste solutions (sodium saccharin or sodium chloride, counterbalanced across rats) was paired with swimming and the other was not, the rats’ intakes of these two solutions showed less consumption of the former than the latter solution. Furthermore, a post-training two-bottle choice test clearly demonstrated long-lasting avoidance of the swimming-paired solution. These results imply that forced swimming acts as an unconditioned stimulus for establishing taste aversion. Preexposure to swimming opportunities before conditioning disrupts such conditioned taste aversion induced by forced swimming.     

Experience and Theory

N. R. Hanson's discussion of experience is criticized. Experience, though necessary for knowing, is insufficient as a basis for understanding in either science or religion. Experience alone can be misleading. We may begin with experience, but we cannot claim to understand until experience has been mediated by theory. The article is excerpted from Metaphoric Process: The Creation of Scientific and Religious Understanding (Gerhart and Russell 1984), Chapter 2.     

Intersensory Redundancy Guides the Development of Selective Attention, Perception, and Cognition in Infancy

Abstract— That the senses provide overlapping information for objects and events is no extravagance of nature. This overlap facilitates attention to critical aspects of sensory stimulation, those that are redundantly specified, and attenuates attention to nonredundantly specified stimulus properties. This selective attention is most pronounced in infancy and gives initial advantage to the perceptual processing of, learning of, and memory for stimulus properties that are redundant, or amodal (e.g., synchrony, rhythm, and intensity), at the expense of modality-specific properties (e.g., color, pitch, and timbre) that can be perceived through only one sense. We review evidence supporting this hypothesis and discuss its implications for theories of perceptual, cognitive, and social development.