Effects of speaking upon the rate and variability of concurrent finger tapping in children

Tapping rate and variability were measured as 73 normal, right-handed children in Grades 1–4 engaged in speeded unimanual finger tapping with and without concurrent recitation. Speaking reduced the rate of tapping and increased its variability to a greater extent in younger children than in older children. Developmental changes in variability but not rate were attributable to a greater number of lengthy (>500 ms) pauses in the tapping of younger children. Speaking slowed the right hand more than the left, and the degree of this asymmetry was constant across grade levels. The right-hand effect for tapping rate was not attributable to lengthy pauses. In contrast, asymmetric increases in tapping variability occurred only among children in Grade 1 and only when lengthy pauses were included in the data. The results implicate three mechanisms of intertask interference: one involving capacity limitations, a second involving cross-talk between motor control mechanisms for speech and finger movement, respectively, and a third factor involving occasional diversion of attention from tapping to speaking. These mechanisms are discussed in relation to developmental changes in mental capacity.     

Defense of a Libertarian Interpretation of Descartes' Account of Judgment1

Widespread scholarly agreement has it that Descartes' theory of judgment favors a compatibilist interpretation. This essay explains and rebuts the standard arguments made on behalf of compatibilist readings, while explaining and defending a libertarian interpretation. Along with relevant Fourth Meditation doctrines and texts, my analysis encompasses a much discussed 1645 letter discussing his account. Although some scholars view the letter as departing from the account of the Meditations, I argue that the two works present a consistent view – allowing us to take at face value that the letter purports to elaborate Descartes' intended meaning in the associated Fourth Meditation passage.     

The active use of grammar in speech perception

Judgments of the location of short bursts of noise in sentences were used to reveal perceptual segmentation of sentences. It was assumed that segmentation would correspond to major constituent boundaries. In order to control for correlated variables of pitch and intonation, identical acoustic material was provided with alternate constituent structures. It was found that differences in response to identical strings were predicted by the points of variation in constituent structure.     

GRAMMATICAL GENDER IS ON THE TIP OF ITALIAN TONGUES

Abstract— To correctly produce words, speakers must have access to three broad classes of information lexical semantics, syntax, and sound structure. The relevant information must be organized in ways that permit rapid and accurate retrieval of specific lexical targets. Current models of language production do this by a two-stage process. The first stage incorporates lexical meanings and syntax, and the second, sound structure. We used studies of the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon (i e, the condition in which a speaker cannot produce a well-known word) to evaluate this organization and in so doing, we provide the first clear experimental evidence for a lexical stage that includes syntax and is distinct from both sound structure and the conceptual correlates of syntactic features     

Sleep,activity, temperature,and performance: Techniques for long-term monitoring in the mouse

This paper describes a test chamber, a food acquisition task, and a training procedure for the long-term testing of an implanted mouse in a circadian rhythm experiment. For the training phase, a special-purpose controller is provided to a single cage. For the experimental phase, behavioral, electrophysiological, and environmental measures are collected by means of a mini-computer.     

Researchers’ Perceptions of a Responsible Research Climate: A Multi Focus Group Study

Science and Engineering Ethics - The research climate plays a key role in fostering integrity in research. However, little is known about what constitutes a responsible research climate. We...     

What Research Institutions Can Do to Foster Research Integrity

Science and Engineering Ethics - In many countries attention for fostering research integrity started with a misconduct case that got a lot of media exposure. But there is an emerging consensus...