Identification, discrimination, and selective adaptation of simultaneous musical intervals

Four experiments investigated perception of major and minor thirds whose component tones were sounded simultaneously. Effects akin to categorical perception of speech sounds were found. In the first experiment, musicians demonstrated relatively sharp category boundaries in identification and peaks near the boundary in discrimination tasks of an interval continuum where the bottom note was always an F and the top note varied from A to A flat in seven equal logarithmic steps. Nonmusicians showed these effects only to a small extent. The musicians showed higher than predicted discrimination performance overall, and reaction time increases at category boundaries. In the second experiment, musicians failed to consistently identify or discriminate thirds which varied in absolute pitch, but retained the proper interval ratio. In the last two experiments, using selective adaptation, consistent shifts were found in both identification and discrimination, similar to those found in speech experiments. Manipulations of adapting and test showed that the mechanism underlying the effect appears to be centrally mediated and confined to a frequency-specific level. A multistage model of interval perception, where the first stages deal only with specific pitches may account for the results

On a Microcomputer Implementation of an Intrusion-detection Algorithm

The main objective of this paper is to discuss various aspects of implementing a specific intrusion-detection scheme on a micro-computer system using fixed-point arithmetic. The proposed scheme is suitable for detecting intruder stimuli which are in the form of transient signals. It consists of two stages: an adaptive digital predictor and an adaptive threshold detection algorithm. Experimental results involving data acquired via field experiments are also included

A Validity Study of the Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire

The short, portable mental status questionnaire (SPMSQ) developed by Pfeiffer has several advantages over previous short instruments designed to assess the intellectual functioning of older adults. It is based upon data from both institutionalized and community-dwelling elderly. Although Pfeiffer a four-group classification, he used to groups in his initial validation study: (a) intact/mildly impaired, and (b) moderately/severely impaired. The present study compared clinicians\u27 ratings with those based upon the SPMSQ scores, and examined the validity of the four-group classification. The sample included 181 subjects from seven intermediate care facilities and nine home-care agencies. All were assessed by the OARS questionnaire, which includes the SPMSQ Three discriminant analyses were performed with three different criteria, for two-group, three-group, and four-group models. Results indicated that the two-group model (intact/mildly impaired and moderately/severely impaired) permitted significant discrimination. The four-group model, however, gave less distinct results. In particular, patients who were mildly intellectually impaired could not be clearly distinguished from those who were intact and from those who were moderately impaired. The three-group model (minimally, moderately, severely impaired) seemed to offer the best compromise between the gross dichotomy of the original two-model system and the less accurate four category system

Learning to Live in a Therapeutic Community: A study of elderly inpatients.

Fifty-two elderly mental patients in a state hospital were transferred to a new milieu ward. In order to evaluate patient success in the unit, three outcome categories were defined nine months after the unit opened: discharge to the community, adjustment to the setting, and return to the previous ward. Despite the unit\u27s emphasis on performance criteria for success, staff evaluations of the patients\u27 personality rather than the patients\u27 achievement of the behavioural criteria, accounted for success in the setting

Ben Jonson\u27s Anti-Puritanism

Although history has caused the satirist Ben Jonson and his witty plays to be swallowed up in the genius of his colleague, dramatist Will Shakespeare, in Elizabethan England the two were considered of similar stature. Ben Jonson, charismatic, antagonistic, conflicted, was a person of little subtlety, but of considerable interest for many. It becomes quickly evident from the characters in his plays Bartholomew Fair and The Alchemist that he developed an antipathy to the Puritans of his day. Ben Jonson, the convert to Catholicism, seemed to take personally the antics and forays of those who claimed their goal was to rid the Anglican Church of all of its Roman ties. What was Jonson’s attitude toward the Puritans? How did it develop? Did it change throughout the years? Were Jonson’s attacks based on what how the Puritans behaved or what they represented? Were the Puritans in Jonson’s eyes the Elizabethan equivalent of the Pharisees’ of Jesus’ time? Or were Jonson’s attacks purely pragmatic? Was claiming to provide spiritual answers a subterfuge for their love of money the catalyst for Jonson’s attacks? Or was it that they cost him popularity and commissions? So virulent were these attacks that some even claimed Jonson “hated” the Puritans. Was this really so? Utilizing all resources available in 1964, this thesis takes the time to weigh and evaluate the different aspects of Ben Jonson’s anti-Puritanism. The weight of conclusion falls on the significance of their impact on Jonson’s life as a dramatist. Research done since that time confirms this conclusion