bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Combining Visual Rehabilitative Training and Noninvasive Brain Stimulation to Enhance Visual Function in Patients With Hemianopia: A Comparative Case Study
Authors: Plow Ela B. , Obretenova Souzana N. , Halko Mark A. , Kenkel Sigrid , Jackson Mary Lou , Pascual‐Leone Alvaro , Merabet Lotfi B.
Published: September 2011

Objective

To standardize a protocol for promoting visual rehabilitative outcomes in post‐stroke hemianopia by combining occipital cortical transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) with Vision Restoration Therapy (VRT).

Design

A comparative case study assessing feasibility and safety.

Setting

A controlled laboratory setting.

Patients

Two patients, both with right hemianopia after occipital stroke damage.

Methods and Outcome Measurements

Both patients underwent an identical VRT protocol that lasted 3 months (30 minutes, twice a day, 3 days per week). In patient 1, anodal tDCS was delivered to the occipital cortex during VRT training, whereas in patient 2 sham tDCS with VRT was performed. The primary outcome, visual field border, was defined objectively by using high‐resolution perimetry. Secondary outcomes included subjective characterization of visual deficit and functional surveys that assessed performance on activities of daily living. For patient 1, the neural correlates of visual recovery were also investigated, by using functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Results

Delivery of combined tDCS with VRT was feasible and safe. High‐resolution perimetry revealed a greater shift in visual field border for patient 1 versus patient 2. Patient 1 also showed greater recovery of function in activities of daily living. Contrary to the expectation, patient 2 perceived greater subjective improvement in visual field despite objective high‐resolution perimetry results that indicated otherwise. In patient 1, visual function recovery was associated with functional magnetic resonance imaging activity in surviving peri‐lesional and bilateral higher‐order visual areas.

Conclusions

Results of preliminary case comparisons suggest that occipital cortical tDCS may enhance recovery of visual function associated with concurrent VRT through visual cortical reorganization. Future studies may benefit from incorporating protocol refinements such as those described here, which include global capture of function, control for potential confounds, and investigation of underlying neural substrates of recovery.
Long-Term Total Negative Effects of School-Average Ability on Diverse Educational Outcomes
Authors: Marsh Herbert W. , O’Mara Alison J.
Published: September 2011

In a longitudinal analysis of students measured on five occasions over eight critical developmental years (grade 10 to five years after high school graduation), school-average ability (M-ABIL) had negative effects on academic self-concept (ASC), school grades, and educational and occupational aspirations. For educational attainment, the direct effects were positive, the indirect effects negative, and the total effects nonsignificant. Previous research has typically reported short-term negative direct effects of M-ABIL, known as the big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE). Using complex structural equation models, we demonstrate that long-term total (direct plus indirect) effects are systematically much more negative than direct effects across diverse educational outcomes, and explore how M-ABIL effects on long-term distal outcomes are mediated through effects on more proximal variables and distinguished from effects of school-average SES. We also demonstrate how ’grading on a curve’ effects (in which equally able students get lower school grades in schools with a high M-ABIL) – often confounded with the BFLPE in short-term studies – is qualitatively different from the BFLPE when considered longitudinally.
Fragebogen zur Erfassung der Motivation für die Wahl des Lehramtsstudiums (FEMOLA) 1Dieser Beitrag wurde unter der Herausgeberschaft von D. Leutner und D. H. Rost bearbeitet.
Authors: Pohlmann Britta , Möller Jens
Published: September 2011

Auf Basis des Erwartungs-Wert-Modells wurde ein Instrument zur Erfassung der Motivation für die Wahl des Lehramtsstudiums (FEMOLA) entwickelt, das an drei Stichproben von Lehramtsstudierenden eingesetzt und validiert wurde. In Studie 1 (Messzeitpunkt 1, N = 291) wurde die faktorielle Struktur des FEMOLA ermittelt. Dabei ließen sich Aspekte der Wertkomponente («Pädagogisches Interesse», «Fachliches Interesse», «Nützlichkeit»), der Erwartungskomponente («Fähigkeitsüberzeugung», «Geringe Schwierigkeit des Studiums») und «Soziale Einflüsse» trennen. Bei einer Wiederholungsmessung (N = 139) und in zwei weiteren Studien (Studie 2: N = 156; Studie 3: N = 310) konnte die faktorielle Struktur des FEMOLA mittels konfirmatorischer Faktorenanalysen bestätigt werden. Reliabilitätsanalysen zeigten in allen Untersuchungen hinreichende interne Konsistenzen der sechs Subskalen. Eine Lösung mit einem intrinsischen und einem extrinsischen Sekundärfaktor ist ebenfalls mit den Daten vereinbar. Zusammenhangsanalysen mit konstruktnahen und –fernen Variablen sowie Schulformvergleiche weisen darüber hinaus auf die konvergente und divergente Validität des Fragebogens hin.
The TRAF-associated protein TANK facilitates cross-talk within the IκB kinase family during Toll-like receptor signaling
Authors: Clark Kristopher , Takeuchi Osamu , Akira Shizuo , Cohen Philip
Published: September 2011

Toll-like receptor (TLR) ligands that signal via TIR-domain-containing adapter-inducing IFNβ (TRIF) activate the IκB kinase (IKK)-related kinases, TRAF associated NFκB activator (TANK)-binding kinase-1 (TBK1) and IKKε, which then phosphorylate IRF3 and induce the production of IFNβ. Here we show that TBK1 and IKKε are also activated by TLR ligands that signal via MyD88. Notably, the activation of IKKε is rapid, transient, and it precedes a more prolonged activation of TBK1. The MyD88- and TRIF-dependent signaling pathways activate the IKK-related kinases by two signaling pathways. One is mediated by the canonical IKKs, whereas the other culminates in the autoactivation of the IKK-related kinases. Once activated, TBK1/IKKε then phosphorylate and inhibit the canonical IKKs. The negative regulation of the canonical IKKs by the IKK-related kinases occurs in both the TRIF- and MyD88-dependent TLR pathways, whereas IRF3 phosphorylation is restricted to the TRIF-dependent signaling pathway. We have discovered that the activation of IKKε is abolished, the activation of TBK1 is reduced, and the interaction between the IKK-related kinases and the canonical IKKs is suppressed in TANK
−/−
macrophages, preventing the IKK-related kinases from negatively regulating the canonical IKKs. In contrast, IRF3 phosphorylation and IFNβ production was normal in TANK
−/−
macrophages. Our results demonstrate a key role for TANK in enabling the canonical IKKs and the IKK-related kinases to regulate each other, which is required to limit the strength of TLR signaling and ultimately, prevent autoimmunity.
Edward G. Browne and the Iranian Constitutional Struggle: From Academic Orientalism to Political Activism
Authors: Bonakdarian Mansour
Published: September 2011

According to the few available cursory biographical accounts of Edward Granville Browne (1862–1926), a prominent Cambridge Orientalist who was to become the leading British authority on Iran in the years immediately preceding WWI, his initial interest in Iran was a byproduct of the affection he developed for Ottoman Turkey in his youth. In his own words, “It was the Turkish war with Russia in 1877–8 that first attracted my attention to the East.” Having developed an “admiration” for Turkey at the age of sixteen, in the process of learning Turkish Browne was to discover “that for further progress … some knowledge of Arabic and Persian was requisite.” Thus began what was to become his lifelong fascination with the Persian language and Iran.
Zanhā-yi millat: Women Or Wives of the Nation?
Authors: Najmabadi Afsaneh
Published: September 2011

Several works in Persian and English have detailed Iranian women's participation in social, political, and literary activities of the Constitutional Revolution. The present essay attempts to look critically at the discourses that informed, and were in turn rearticulated and transformed by, these activities. It will be argued that in the early years of the 20th century the very concept represented by the word zan was a contested one; that its homonymic ambiguity (meaning both woman and wife) signified the ambiguity of womanhood itself. Further, it will be argued that this ambiguity resided in the integration into the Constitutionalist language of two conflicting discursive elements regarding women—a contestatory rearticulation that charted the possibilities, as well as the limitations, of defining a new womanhood.
On Mysticism and Esotericism among the Zoroastrians
Authors: Russell James R.
Published: September 2011

The idea of Zoroastrian mysticism might at first glance seem a contradiction in terms. The Good Religion, after all, is čīmīg, “rational,” above all else: Zoroaster elegantly solved the most intractable mystery of all faiths, theodicy, by the revelation of cosmic dualism. The mere assertion that there are esoteric doctrines within Zoroastrianism has been criticized. This criticism springs in part from a flawed perception of mysticism itself, which, as it will be argued, is not an independent entity, everywhere the same. Rather, each religion has a mysticism of its own, often irreconcilable in some of its features with the mainstream, and, in the case of Zoroastrianism, with some of the religion's plain logic. Also, the existence of mysticism within a religious tradition does not imply its centrality to that tradition. Mysticism exists in Christianity, but could scarcely be called essential to it, considering the claim, elaborated as the Christian church rose to universal prominence, to the radically overt and sufficient truth of the Gospel.
The Impact of Modernization on the Ulama in Iran, 1925–1941
Authors: Faghfoory Mohammad H.
Published: September 2011

This article examines the impact of modernization and Westernization on the clerical community in Iran between 1925 and 1941, and discusses briefly the reactions and attitudes of various factions and strata of the ulama toward the modernization efforts of the state. The study also demonstrates that the clergy's reaction to modernization was not one of outright opposition and resistance. While the clerical community as a whole rejected Westernization, its reaction to the government's modernization policies varied greatly.

The process of modernization in Iran was accompanied by a considerable degree of change in social stratification. New social classes and occupational groups emerged and the power of the old and traditional elites declined. In contrast to popular assumptions, the ulama as a traditional elite showed a remarkable degree of adaptability in response to modernization and social change.
Phonology and Orthography in Visual Word Recognition: Evidence from Masked Non-Word Priming
Authors: Ferrand Ludovic , Grainger Jonathan
Published: September 2011

Three lexical decision experiments in French investigated the effects of briefly presented forward-masked non-word primes on latencies to phonologically and/or orthographically related targets. At 64-msec prime presentation durations, primes that are pseudohomophones of the target produced facilitatory effects compared to orthographic controls, but these orthographically similar non-word primes did not facilitate target recognition compared to unrelated controls. These results were obtained independently of target word frequency and independently of the presence or absence of pseudohomophone targets in the experimental lists. With a 32-msec prime duration, on the other hand, pseudohomophone and orthographic primes had similar effects on target recognition, both producing facilitation relative to unrelated controls. The results are discussed in terms of the time course of phonological and orthographic code activation in the processing of pronounceable strings of letters.
An Anxiety-Related Bias in Semantic Activation When Processing Threat/Neutral Homographs
Authors: Richards Anne , French Christopher C.
Published: September 2011

Three experiments are reported comparing high and low-trait anxious subjects in terms of their patterns of semantic activation in response to ambiguous primes, with one threat-related and one neutral meaning. Such primes were followed by targets related to either their threat or neutral meaning, or by unrelated targets, in a lexical decision task. Experiments 1 to 3 employed stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) of 750 msec, 500 msec, and 1250 msec, respectively. At 500-msec SOA all subjects showed facilitation for both meanings. At 750-msec SOA the only significant priming effect was that for the threat-related meaning in the high-anxiety group, and a similar trend was found at 1250-msec SOA. Consideration of the patterns of priming for targets following ambiguous threat/neutral primes suggest that at the longer SOAs, high-anxiety subjects consciously “lock on” to a threatening interpretation if one has been made available by earlier automatic spreading activation.
A Reinterpretation of Some Earlier Evidence for Abstractiveness of Implicitly Acquired Knowledge
Authors: Perruchet Pierre , Gallego Jorge , Pacteau Chantal
Published: September 2011

Reber and Lewis (1977) exposed subjects to a subset of letter strings generated from a synthetic grammar, then asked them to reorder scrambled letters to generate new grammatical strings. The distribution of the frequency of the bigrams composing their solutions correlated better with the frequency of the bigrams composing the full set of strings generated by the grammar than with the frequency of the bigrams composing the subset of strings displayed in the study phase. In his recent overview on implicit learning, Reber (1989) develops this experimental result into one of the main supports for his contention that studying grammatical letter strings gives access to the abstract structure of the grammar.

However, this result can be accounted for by a set of biases inherent to the Reber and Lewis procedure. In the present experiment, a group of subjects learned from a list of the bigrams making up the study strings, a condition which precludes the abstraction of any high-level rules. The pattern of correlations outlined above also emerged in this condition, thus lending support to our re-interpretation.
Selective education: issues of gender, class and ideology in Northern Nigeria
Authors: Pittin Renée
Published: September 2011

A series of policy initiatives have been put forward in Nigeria over the last two decades aimed at expanding its educational system. But while numbers enroled have increased, gender and class differentials persist. Females have always been represented in smaller numbers than have males and have tended to be disproportionately drawn from the more privileged elements of society. This has broadly accorded with ideologies justifying a primarily domestic role for women which, in the case of Katsina in northern Nigeria, have emanated both from the secular state and the religious authorities. Pittin examines the latest policy initiative, a directive that females at secondary level would be educated only in boarding schools. While suggesting that it is likely to perpetuate and even exacerbate the women's relatively disadvantaged position as regards education, she also argues that it offers certain benefits. Moreover, because promulgated as consistent with Islamic morality, precisely at a time when greater legitimacy is being accorded to women's education by elements of the Muslim community, and Islamic schools are themselves permitting some questioning of previously accepted notions of women's role, it may offer space for some improvement of women's situation.
The impact of apartheid on women's education in South Africa
Authors: Unterhalter Elaine
Published: September 2011

While the proportions of their age group in school at primary, secondary and tertiary levels is quite high for black South Africans, relative to the situation in other African states, they face an authoritarian education system which is still riven by inequality. The expansion of education for all groups has formed part of the strategy of the government both to create skills needed for the economy and, through limited individual improvement, to stave off black discontent. That the policy has had inherent contradictions is evident from the widespread disruption in black schools which has characterised recent years. But it is important to note also that even where opportunities have increased, they have been unequally distributed throughout the population. In particular South Africa suffers, as do so many other countries, from gender inequality in education. Black women suffer doubly, by virtue of race and of gender. This article examines the dimensions of that inequality at different levels and in respect of different population groups.
Disconnecting knowledge and understanding from human values: a critique of National Curriculum development
Authors: Elliott John
Published: September 2011

This paper was first delivered at the National Curriculum Conference, University of Liverpool, April 1989. A version of it was subsequently presented as a keynote address at the Curriculum Association's annual conference in York in April 1990.
Coherence and manageability: reflections on the National Curriculum and cross‐curricular provision
Authors: Hargreaves David H.
Published: September 2011

This is a revised version of a paper first presented at the Curriculum Association's annual conference at the University of York in April 1990.
Making a statement: an analysis of teacher‐pupil talk within ‘child conferences’ in the Primary Language Record
Authors: Stierer Barry
Published: September 2011

This research focuses upon a very particular instance of teacher‐pupil discourse in primary school classrooms, viz. one‐to‐one ‘child conferences’ between individual primary school pupils and their teachers, carried out as part of the Primary Language Record (Barrs et al., 1988). Child conferences were developed to enable teachers to discuss with individual pupils aspects of their background, experience, interests and learning in the language and literacy area. The rationale for the research relates to the significance of the child conference as a type of informal assessment, and as an example of a particular kind of spoken language in the classroom.

This article reports on the first stage of the research, which comprised an analysis of one teacher's conferences with six of her Year 3 (7‐8‐year‐old) pupils. The purpose of this analysis was to develop a range of possible conceptual perspectives for analysing teacher‐pupil talk within the child conference, as a basis for a larger‐scale project involving a larger number of teachers and schools and a wider age range of children. The article sets out these analytical perspectives, illustrated with examples from transcripts of the six tape‐recorded conferences. The discussion evaluates the usefulness of ‘formative assessment’, ‘classroom discourse’, ‘teaching and learning’ and ‘speech and writing’ as perspectives for gaining a greater understanding of the talk within these examples of child conferences. Issues emerging from this analysis which will be examined in the larger study include: the extent to which the conferences inform future teaching; the ‘ground rules’ governing teacher‐pupil talk within the conferences; the function of the conference as a setting for teaching and learning; the negotiation of pupil identities within the conference; and the relationship between the spoken language within the conference and the written language of the resulting record.
The politics of environmental education: a case‐study
Authors: Elliott John
Published: September 2011

The ‘Environment and School Initiatives’ (ENSI) project is an OECD curriculum development project based on a ‘process model’. Eleven OECD countries, excluding the UK, participated in Phase 1 (1986‐8). The author carried out a comparative analysis of case‐studies of this phase, then sought to gain government support for the participation of UK schools in the second phase of ENSI. This article tells the story of his efforts and the responses they met with. The narrative describes and analyses the complex roles and positions taken by government departments, charitable foundations and multinational companies. The negative outcome for the future of the project in England and Wales indicated that the British government were more interested in the construction of politically symbolic acts which publicly signify concern for the environment than with the promotion of effective and educationally worthwhile pedagogies for environmental education.
Memorial Consequences of Generating Words and Non-words
Authors: Liu In-mao , Lee Yuh-shiow
Published: September 2011

The present study conceptualizes recall of an item as consisting of two stages: reaching a subgoal of finding a starting feature in the first stage and then attaining the final goal of recovering the to-be-recalled item by finding a subsequent retrieval route. In generating items according to some production rule, the subject is practising finding subsequent retrieval routes leading from initial features to the to-be-remembered items. Therefore, the generation effect can be localized at the second stage. Five experiments manipulated accessibility of initial features and distinctiveness of subsequent retrieval routes. The results explain why it was so difficult to obtain the generation effect for non-words in recent studies and why it can be obtained in some specifiable conditions. The results also explain why the generation effect can be easily obtained with words but sometimes fails to obtain.
The Effects of Repeating a Recognition Test in Lorazepam-Induced Amnesia: Evidence for Impaired Contextual Memory as a Cause of Amnesia
Authors: Brown John , Brown Malcolm W.
Published: September 2011

In two experiments, a recognition test for an earlier presented list was given twice in immediate succession (Test 1 and Test 2). On the hypothesis that anterograde amnesia for episodic memory involves a deficit in contextual memory, amnesic subjects should confuse familiarity with distractor items gained during Test 1 with familiarity gained during original list presentation. As a result, they should think that they recognize more items on Test 2. This will lower recognition efficiency in Test 2 by increasing false alarms rather than by reducing hits. For subjects with an amnesia induced by lorazepam, but not for control subjects, recognition efficiency was substantially reduced in Test 2 in both experiments. As predicted, this impairment was due to a large increase in false alarms, with no decrease in the number of hits. The impairment could not be explained by a difference in recognition level between lorazepam and control subjects on Test 1. These findings therefore support the contextual memory deficit hypothesis of anterograde amnesia. Their implications for understanding the relationship between recall and recognition in amnesia are discussed.
Processing Strategies in a Phoneme Deletion Task
Authors: Stuart Morag
Published: September 2011

The present study explores the factors underlying competence in a difficult consonant deletion task, using a sample of nine-year-old children whose development had been followed from the age of four. In particular it examines the factors governing use of phonological and orthographic strategies in the deletion task, and the relations between strategy use, current reading and spelling ability, and earlier phonological awareness skills. Processes in consonant deletion are then mapped on to current dual-route models of reading and spelling.
The Elusive Pragmatic Reasoning Schemas Effect
Authors: Jackson Sherri L. , Griggs Richard A.
Published: September 2011

The present study examined the pragmatic reasoning schema theory of deductive reasoning—specifically, its explanation of performance on the selection task. Experiment 1 replicated a result crucial to the theory, the finding of facilitation on abstract versions of the selection task based on pragmatic reasoning schemas. However, Experiments 2, 3, and 4 established that this facilitation was dependent upon two presentation factors: (1) the presence of explicit negatives on the NOT P and NOT Q cards and (2) the inclusion of a checking context in the problem statement. These results are discussed in terms of Evans's two-stage (heuristic/analytic processing) model of reasoning.
Age and Prospective Memory
Authors: Maylor Elizabeth A.
Published: September 2011

This paper reports an investigation into the effects of age, intelligence, and retrospective memory on performance in a prospective memory task in which subjects aged between 52 and 95 were required to telephone once a day either between two times or at an exact time. The most important influence on performance was how subjects chose to remember to make the telephone calls. The best performance was from subjects who telephoned either in conjunction with another routine event or engaged in some form of advanced planning of the daily schedule. The worst performance was from those who relied on internal cues from their own memory. Performance was intermediate from those who used external cues such as notes or diary entries. Subjects in the between condition were less likely to choose internal cues than those in the exact condition, possibly because the task appeared more difficult, and this resulted in their showing superior performance. The effect of age was influenced by the cue used. For subjects using internal cues, those who forgot were older than those who remembered, whereas for subjects using the other cues, those who forgot were younger than those who remembered. Regardless of cue, self-ratings of cognitive failures were related to performance such that those who reported more minor everyday mistakes were indeed more likely to forget to telephone. While there was some indirect effect of general intelligence on performance in the task, there was no relationship between retrospective memory scores and whether or not subjects remembered to telephone.
The Mediation of Paired Associate Recall by Representations of Properties Ascribed to Objects in Perception and Imagination
Authors: Wilton Richard N.
Published: September 2011

Any perceived or imagined object will have various properties: for example, it may be of a particular size, shape, and colour. In this paper it is argued that when two objects are perceived or imagined to be interacting, they are likely, as a result, to have properties that may, in part, mediate paired associate recall. In Experiments 1 and 2 it was shown that if the object to be named in recall has properties that are the same as the object named by the cue, then recall is greater than when the properties differ. In Experiment 3 it was shown that if the object to be named in recall has properties that are relevant to a relation between the two objects, then recall is enhanced, as compared with conditions in which this is not the case. In discussion, it is argued that, by means similar to those operating in these experiments, a representation of properties may contribute to recall in experiments in which subjects use interactive imagery.
The Contribution of Morphological and Semantic Relatedness to Repetition Priming at Short and Long Lags: Evidence from Hebrew
Authors: Bentin Shlomo , Feldman Laurie B.
Published: September 2011

The effect of morphological repetition at lag 0 and at lag 15 on lexical decision was investigated in Hebrew with three types of relation between prime and target. In the semantic-plus-morphological condition (SM), the prime and the target in each pair were two semantically related derivatives of the same root. In the “pure morphological” condition (M), the prime and the target derived from the same root, but their semantic association was very low, or nonexistent. In the semantic priming condition (S), primes and targets were semantically associated but were not morphologically related. The pure semantic relationship produced a significant facilitation at lag 0 that disappeared completely at lag 15. The pure morphological relation produced (smaller but) significant facilitation at lag 0 that was not attenuated at lag 15. When prime and target were semantically as well as morphologically related, the facilitation at lag 0 was similar to semantic priming, whereas at lag 15 it was similar to the pure morphological effect. Significant repetition effects at both lags were also found with non-words that shared the same (nonsensical) root and differed with respect to real derivational affixes. The differential time course for facilitation due to semantic and morphological relatedness suggests distinct underlying processes, although at lag 0 it is possible that semantic relatedness may augment the morphological repetition effect. Morphological repetition probably facilitates the retrieval of lexical information that, under certain circumstances, is necessary for lexical decision.
Response Options and Presentation Format as Contributors to Conditional Reasoning
Authors: Dugan Charles M. , Revlin Russell
Published: September 2011

The present study examines whether students’ inability to solve conditional reasoning problems, shown in previous studies, is at least partially attributable to having to choose among logically incorrect response options. In two experiments, students evaluated conclusions to conditional reasoning problems where one of several response options was either the standard, Sometimes true, or the more logically appropriate, Could be true. Decision accuracy was related to the logical appropriateness of the response options available. This relationship was replicated across different problem types and formats.
Short Report: Reaction Time Analysis with Outlier Exclusion: Bias Varies with Sample Size
Authors: Miller Jeff
Published: September 2011

To remove the influence of spuriously long response times, many investigators compute “restricted means”, obtained by throwing out any response time more than 2.0, 2.5, or 3.0 standard deviations from the overall sample average. Because reaction time distributions are skewed, however, the computation of restricted means introduces a bias: the restricted mean underestimates the true average of the population of response times. This problem may be very serious when investigators compare restricted means across conditions with different numbers of observations, because the bias increases with sample size. Simulations show that there is substantial differential bias when comparing conditions with fewer than 10 observations against conditions with more than 20. With strongly skewed distributions and a cutoff of 3.0 standard deviations, differential bias can influence comparisons of conditions with even more observations.
A Unified Account of the Effects of Distinctiveness, Inversion, and Race in Face Recognition
Authors: Valentine Tim
Published: September 2011

A framework is outlined in which individual faces are assumed to be encoded as a point in a multidimensional space, defined by dimensions that serve to discriminate faces. It is proposed that such a framework can account for the effects of distinctiveness, inversion, and race on recognition of faces. Two specific models within this framework are identified: a norm-based coding model, in which faces are encoded as vectors from a population norm or prototype; and a purely exemplar-based model. Both models make similar predictions, albeit in different ways, concerning the interactions between the effects of distinctiveness, inversion and race. These predictions were supported in five experiments in which photographs of faces served as stimuli. The norm-based coding version and the exemplar-based version of the framework cannot be distinguished on the basis of the experiments reported, but it is argued that a multidimensional space provides a useful heuristic framework to investigate recognition of faces. Finally, the relationship between the specific models is considered and an implementation in terms of parallel distributed processing is briefly discussed.
Prosopagnosia: A Reclassification
Authors: McNeil Jane E. , Warrington Elizabeth K.
Published: September 2011

We report a quantitative investigation of three patients who presented with a profound prosopagnosia. They were tested on a series of tests of face perception, face recognition, and paired associate learning using faces. A patient with marked perceptual difficulties but no difficulty whatever in recognizing faces was tested as a control. The control patient's performance was as bad or worse on the tests of perception of faces, and it is concluded that impaired performance on tests of face perception does not contribute to difficulties in recognizing familiar faces. The major difference between the three prosopagnosic patients was the evidence of covert recognition in two of these cases but not in the third. We use this evidence to argue that the perceptual/mnestic distinction is an inappropriate classification and would suggest instead that the two types may be described in terms either of a disconnection of the face recognition units or of damage to the units themselves.
Relative Contributions of Envelope Maxima and Minima to Comodulation Masking Release
Authors: Hall Joseph W. , Grose John H.
Published: September 2011

Comodulation masking release (CMR) is a phenomenon that demonstrates the sensitivity of the auditory system to across-frequency differences in the temporal modulation pattern of a complex waveform. In this paper, we review briefly some of the data on the physical parameters that affect CMR and describe models that have been proposed to account for CMR –- namely, models based upon envelope equalization/cancellation, across-frequency envelope correlation, and “dip listening”. The present literature is ambiguous with regard to the relative importance of energy in the peak and dip regions of the waveform envelope. We therefore performed a series of experiments to investigate this issue. In the first experiment, we examined CMR for signals that resulted either in a uniform increment or in uniform decrement in the masking noise centred on the signal frequency. This was accomplished by using a 20-Hz-wide noise band centred on 700 Hz as both the masker and as the signal, adjusting the phase angle between the signal and masker to either 0° (increment) or 180° (decrement). Conditions were examined where either zero, one, two, four, or six comodulated flanking bands were present. Results indicated positive CMRs for all conditions in which a comodulated flanking band was present. CMR increased as the number of flanking bands increased for intensity increments, but not for intensity decrements. The remaining experiments examined conditions where signals were present only in masker peaks, or only in masker dips. The results of these experiments indicated relatively large CMRs when the signal occurred in dip regions, but no CMR when the signal occurred in peak regions. Whereas some of the results of the above experiments would be difficult to account for in terms of the dip listening hypothesis of CMR, the present findings did indicate that the stimulus cues that give rise to CMR appear to be derived primarily from the dip regions of the masking noise.
The Perception of Back Vowels: Centre of Gravity Hypothesis
Authors: Assmann Peter F.
Published: September 2011

According to the formant centre of gravity (FCOG) hypothesis, two vowel formants in close proximity are merged during perceptual analysis, and their contribution to vowel quality depends on the centre of gravity of the formant cluster. Findings consistent with this hypothesis are that two formants can be replaced by a single formant of intermediate centre frequency, provided their separation is less than 3-3.5 Bark; and that changes in their relative amplitudes produce systematic shifts in vowel quality. In Experiment 1, listeners adjusted the frequencies of F1 and F2 in a synthesized 6-formant vowel (with the F1-F2 separation fixed at 250 Hz, i.e. less than 3 Bark) to find the best phonetic match to a reference vowel with modified formant amplitudes. Contrary to FCOG predictions, F2 attenuation did not produce lower frequency matches. Raising the amplitude of F2 led to predicted upward shifts in formant frequencies of the matched vowel, but with increased variability of matches for some stimuli. In Experiment 2, listeners identified synthesized vowels with a range of separations of F1 and F2. Formant amplitude manipulations had no effect on listeners’ judgements when the fundamental frequency was low (125 Hz). Small shifts in vowel quality appeared for stimuli with a high fundamental (250 Hz), but the shifts were significantly larger for F1–F2 separations greater than 3.5 Bark. These effects of formant amplitude are qualitatively different from those observed with single-formant vowels and are generally incompatible with a formant-averaging mechanism.
Binaural Loudness Matches in Unilaterally Impaired Listeners
Authors: Zeng Fan-Gang , Turner Christopher W.
Published: September 2011

Binaural loudness matching data using a 2IFC adaptive procedure were obtained in high-frequency, unilateral cochlear-impaired listeners. The matches were obtained at frequencies where both ears had similarly normal thresholds, and also at other frequencies where the impaired ear had various degrees of hearing loss. In these listeners, one presumed difference between the ears is the limited or altered spread of excitation in the impaired ear. In agreement with previous studies using other approaches (Hellman, 1974, 1978; Hellman & Meiselman, 1986; Moore, Glasberg, Hess & Birchall, 1985; Schneider & Parker, 1987), the results of the present study suggest that both the range and the slope of loudness growth function are not dependent on the spread of excitation, but instead are related primarily to the degree of threshold elevation at the test frequency. Following this suggestion, a spread-of-excitation-independent model, based upon a group of neurons with the same characteristic frequency (CF) but different thresholds, is proposed to account for loudness growth in both normal and recruitment cases. In particular, it is shown quantitatively that a compressed distribution of thresholds due to threshold elevation may be responsible for loudness recruitment in sensorineural hearing loss.
The Effects of Word Length and Phonemic Similarity in Young Children's Short-term Memory
Authors: Henry Lucy A.
Published: September 2011

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that word length and phonemic similarity effects in young children's recall with auditory presentation result from verbal output, and not: (1) rehearsal in the case of word length effects; (2) confusion at input in the case of phonemic similarity effects. In an auditorily presented probed recall task, where there were no full verbal output requirements, children aged five years did not show either effect. Children aged seven years showed both word length and phonemic similarity effects. It was concluded that, in children of age five, word length effects can not necessarily be taken as evidence for rehearsal, nor can the phonemic similarity effect be assumed to result from confusion at input. It is suggested that the process of saying a list verbally may cause both of these effects, and that care must be taken to distinguish input and output processes in the development of children's short-term memory.
Impairment of the Visuo-Spatial Sketch Pad
Authors: Hanley J. Richard , Young Andrew W. , Pearson Norma A.
Published: September 2011

A case study is presented of a female patient, ELD, who has difficulty in the immediate recall of short sequences of visuo-spatial material following a right-hemisphere aneurysm. Despite poor performance on tasks such as the Brooks Matrix and the Corsi Blocks, ELD is good at the immediate serial recall of letters even when presentation modality is visual and shows effects of phonological similarity and articulatory suppression. This pattern of performance represents a double dissociation from that which has been observed with the short-term memory patient PV (Vallar & Baddeley, 1984), who is extremely poor at serial recall of verbal material but shows no visual memory impairment. It is argued that ELD has an impairment to the visuo-spatial component of working memory (Baddeley, 1986) in the absence of any phonological loop deficit. Further investigation reveals that ELD performs poorly on mental rotation tasks and finds it difficult to use imagery mnemonics, but has no difficulty in retrieving visuo-spatial information from long-term memory so long as it was learnt before her illness.
Semantic inhibition of Ignored Words during a Figure Classification Task
Authors: Yee Penny L.
Published: September 2011

Two experiments investigated inhibitory processes in visual spatial attention. In particular, factors influencing the suppression of ignored visual stimuli were investigated. Subjects responded to geometric shapes while distractors were presented in the periphery. Distractors consisted of a single word, a pair of unrelated words, or a single word paired with a string of non-linguistic symbols. Semantic processing of the ignored words was measured with a subsequent lexical decision task. Test probes presented after the prime displays revealed suppression effects for words semantically related to a previously ignored word, but only for conditions in which two distractor words were presented. Suppression was not observed when the prime consisted of a single word or a single word paired with non-linguistic symbols. In Experiment 2 two different time delays between the onset of the primes and the onset of the test probes were used. At the shorter interval facilitatory priming was observed, while at longer intervals suppression was observed. The facilitation-suppression pattern suggests that ignored items are recognized before being suppressed. In summary, the results suggest the following: (1) that selectively attending does not restrict ignored items from gaining access to their semantic representations, and (2) that inhibition is an important process in determining the focus of attention. These results are discussed within a selective attention framework in which all items in a display gain access to memory representations, and attention to selected items causes competing items to be inhibited.
Phonological Processing and Right minus Left Hand Skill
Authors: Annett Marian
Published: September 2011

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that children at the left of the distribution of right minus left (R-L) hand skill are at risk for poor phonological processing. In the first experiment, individual assessments of spoken rhyme awareness were made in 5- to 8-year-olds. In the second experiment, a group test of word order memory for spoken confusable and nonconfusable items was given to 9- to 11-year-olds. Evidence of poorer phonological processing in those at the left of the R-L distribution was found in both experiments. Rhyme judgements and word order memory were both associated with reading ability, but reading did not interact with effects for hand skill. A group test of homophone comprehension was given to the same children tested for word order memory. Homophone errors did not differ between hand skill groups, showing a dissociation between the two tasks for R-L hand difference. The findings suggest that some risks for phonological processing could be due to normal genetic variation associated with the hypothesized rs + gene (Annett, 1972, 1978).
The Effect of Erroneous Knowledge of Results on Skill Acquisition when Augmented Information is Redundant
Authors: Buekers Martinus J. A. , Magill Richard A. , Hall Kellie G.
Published: September 2011

Even though it can be shown that verbal knowledge of results (KR) is redundant with sensory feedback for learning certain motor skills, such findings do not eliminate the possibility that when KR is available it influences underlying learning processes. In order to examine the function of KR more closely, two experiments were designed in which the subjects received conflicting information about their own sensory feedback and the KR presented by the experimenter. In Experiment 1, two erroneous-KR groups, a correct-KR group, and a no-KR group performed 150 practice trials on a simple anticipation timing task and then performed three no-KR retention tests of 30 trials each following intervals of 10 minutes, 1 week, and 1 month. The results supported previous findings that providing correct KR is redundant in anticipation tasks. However, learning was influenced by KR as subjects performed according to the erroneous KR information, thereby ignoring their sensory feedback even after a 1-month interval. In Experiment 2, subjects practised a more complex striking response for the anticipation task for 75 trials and then performed no-KR retention trials either immediately, or 1 day or 1 week later. One of the groups received erroneous KR after 50 practice trials with correct KR. The results confirmed and extended those from Experiment 1, as erroneous KR, even after initial practice with correct KR, influenced retention performance. These results indicate that although KR provides information that is not needed to learn anticipation timing skills, this augmented verbal information is a dominant source of information that influences underlying cognitive processes involved in learning motor skills.
Repetition Priming Follows Spontaneous but not Prompted Recognition of Familiar Faces
Authors: Brunas-Wagstaff Joana , Young Andrew W. , Ellis Andrew W.
Published: September 2011

Reaction times to make a familiarity decision to the faces of famous people were measured after recognition of the faces in a pre-training phase had occurred spontaneously or following prompting with a name or other cue. At test, reaction times to familiar faces that had been recognized spontaneously in the pre-training phase were significantly facilitated relative to an unprimed comparison condition. Reaction times to familiar faces recognized only after prompting in the pre-training phase were not significantly facilitated. This was demonstrated both when a name prompt was used (Experiments 1 and 3) and when subjects were cued with brief semantic information (Experiment 2).

Repetition priming was not found to depend on prior spontaneous recognition per se. In Experiment 3, spontaneously recognizing a familiar face did not prime subsequent familiarity judgements when the same face had only been identified following prompting on a prior encounter. In Experiment 4, recognition memory for faces recognized after cueing was found to be over 90% accurate. This indicates that prompted recognition does not yield repetition priming, even though subjects can remember the faces. A fusion of “face recognition unit” and “episodic record” accounts of the repetition priming effect may be more useful than either theory alone in explaining these results.