Phonetic Imitation of Vowel Duration in L2 Speech

This paper reports the results of a pilot study concerned with phonetic imitation in the speech of Polish learners of English. The purpose of the study was to investigate whether native speakers of Polish imitate the length of English vowels and to determine whether the extent of phonetic imitation may be influenced by the model talker being a native or a non-native speaker of English. The participants were asked to perform an auditory naming task in which they indentified objects and actions presented on a set of photos twice, with and without the imitation task. The imitation task was further sub-divided depending on the model talker being a native or non-native speaker of English (a native Southern British English speaker and a native Polish speaker fluent in English). As the aim was to investigate the variability in durational characteristics of English vowels, the series of front vowels /æ e ɪ iː/ were analysed in the shortening and lengthening b_t vs. b_d contexts. The results of the study show that the participants imitated the length of the investigated vowels as a result of exposure to the two model talkers. The data suggest that the degree of imitation was mediated both by linguistic and social factors and that the direction of convergence might have been affected by the participants’ attitude toward L2 pronunciation

Blinded by magic: eye-movements reveal the misdirection of attention

Recent studies (e.g., Kuhn & Tatler, 2005) have suggested that magic tricks can provide a powerful and compelling domain for the study of attention and perception. In particular, many stage illusions involve attentional misdirection, guiding the observer’s gaze to a salient object or event, while another critical action, such as sleight of hand, is taking place. Even if the critical action takes place in full view, people typically fail to see it due to inattentional blindness. In an eye-tracking experiment, participants watched videos of a new magic trick, wherein a coin placed beneath a napkin disappears, reappearing under a different napkin. Appropriately deployed attention would allow participants to detect the secret event that underlies the illusion (a moving coin), as it happens in full view and is visible for approximately 550 ms. Nevertheless, we observed high rates of inattentional blindness. Unlike prior research, eye-movements during the critical event showed different patterns for participants, depending upon whether they saw the moving coin. The results also showed that when participants watched several practice videos without any moving coin, they became far more likely to detect the coin in the critical trial. Taken together, the findings are consistent with perceptual load theory (Lavie & Tsal, 1994)

Production and perception of speaker-specific phonetic detail at word boundaries

Experiments show that learning about familiar voices affects speech processing in many tasks. However, most studies focus on isolated phonemes or words and do not explore which phonetic properties are learned about or retained in memory. This work investigated inter-speaker phonetic variation involving word boundaries, and its perceptual consequences. A production experiment found significant variation in the extent to which speakers used a number of acoustic properties to distinguish junctural minimal pairs e.g. 'So he diced them'—'So he'd iced them'. A perception experiment then tested intelligibility in noise of the junctural minimal pairs before and after familiarisation with a particular voice. Subjects who heard the same voice during testing as during the familiarisation period showed significantly more improvement in identification of words and syllable constituents around word boundaries than those who heard different voices. These data support the view that perceptual learning about the particular pronunciations associated with individual speakers helps listeners to identify syllabic structure and the location of word boundaries

From chemotherapy to targeted treatment

Today, melanoma is considered as a spectrum of melanocytic malignancies that can be characterized by clinical and molecular features, including targetable mutations in several kinases. The successful development of therapies, targeting mutated BRaF (v-raf murine sarcoma viral oncogene homolog B1) or c-KIT (v-kit Hardy-Zuckerman 4 feline sarcoma viral oncogene homolog), has resulted in new treatment options including vemurafenib, imatinib and mitogen-activated protein kinase inhibitors. These molecules are selected if the respective mutation is present. after this first progress in the treatment of advanced melanoma, there is expectation that combinations of kinase inhibitor will additionally improve the overall survival rates and progression-free survival in advanced melanom

Microsaccades reflect the dynamics of misdirected attention in magic

The methods of magicians provide powerful tools for enhancing the ecological validity of laboratory studies of attention. The current research borrows a technique from magic to explore the relationship between microsaccades and covert attention under near-natural viewing conditions. We monitored participants’ eye movements as they viewed a magic trick where a coin placed beneath a napkin vanishes and reappears beneath another napkin. Many participants fail to see the coin move from one location to the other the first time around, thanks to the magician’s misdirection. However, previous research was unable to distinguish whether or not participants were fooled based on their eye movements. Here, we set out to determine if microsaccades may provide a window into the efficacy of the magician’s misdirection. In a multi-trial setting, participants monitored the location of the coin (which changed positions in half of the trials), while engaging in a delayed match-to-sample task at a different spatial location. Microsaccades onset times varied with task difficulty, and microsaccade directions indexed the locus of covert attention. Our com-bined results indicate that microsaccades may be a useful metric of covert attentional processes in applied and ecologically valid settings

Effects of Perceptual and Conceptual Cues in a Response Switching Task

ABSTRACT In the directed response switching (DRS) task, participants kept two conflicting responses active, choosing between responses on each trial. The primary response was word naming, whereas the secondary response was a generic verbal response, "bam." In previous versions of DRS, we used color as the sole cue for the correct response, potentially allowing people to make decisions about correct responses without fully encoding the stimuli. In the present experiment, we varied perceptual (color) and conceptual (group membership) cues to examine the effect of more complex cues on decision making. We also manipulated the ease of detecting the primary response and secondary response cues. Using response times as the dependent measure, we found a three-way interaction: Altering the nature of the cues lead to dramatic changes in cognitive control performance. Conceptual input exaggerated both the task and discrimination effects, relative to perceptual input. DESIG