Levels-of-Processing Effects on Remember Responses in Recognition For Familiar and Unfamiliar Tunes

We investigated the effect of level-of-processing manipulations on remember and know responses in episodic melody recognition (Experiments 1 and 2) and how this effect is modulated by item familiarity (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, participants performed 2 conceptual and 2 perceptual orienting tasks while listening to familiar melodies: judging the mood, continuing the tune, tracing the pitch contour, and counting long notes. The conceptual mood task led to higher d\u27 rates for remember but not know responses. In Experiment 2, participants either judged the mood or counted long notes of tunes with high and low familiarity. A level-of-processing effect emerged again in participants\u27 remember d\u27 rates regardless of melody familiarity. Results are discussed within the distinctive processing framework

Commonality and variation in mental representations of music revealed by a cross-cultural comparison of rhythm priors in 15 countries

Music is present in every known society but varies from place to place. What, if anything, is universal to music cognition? We measured a signature of mental representations of rhythm in 39 participant groups in 15 countries, spanning urban societies and Indigenous populations. Listeners reproduced random ‘seed’ rhythms; their reproductions were fed back as the stimulus (as in the game of ‘telephone’), such that their biases (the prior) could be estimated from the distribution of reproductions. Every tested group showed a sparse prior with peaks at integer-ratio rhythms. However, the importance of different integer ratios varied across groups, often reflecting local musical practices. Our results suggest a common feature of music cognition: discrete rhythm ‘categories’ at small-integer ratios. These discrete representations plausibly stabilize musical systems in the face of cultural transmission but interact with culture-specific traditions to yield the diversity that is evident when mental representations are probed across many cultures

Commonality and variation in mental representations of music revealed by a cross-cultural comparison of rhythm priors in 15 countries

Music is present in every known society but varies from place to place. What, if anything, is universal to music cognition? We measured a signature of mental representations of rhythm in 39 participant groups in 15 countries, spanning urban societies and Indigenous populations. Listeners reproduced random 'seed' rhythms; their reproductions were fed back as the stimulus (as in the game of 'telephone'), such that their biases (the prior) could be estimated from the distribution of reproductions. Every tested group showed a sparse prior with peaks at integer-ratio rhythms. However, the importance of different integer ratios varied across groups, often reflecting local musical practices. Our results suggest a common feature of music cognition: discrete rhythm 'categories' at small-integer ratios. These discrete representations plausibly stabilize musical systems in the face of cultural transmission but interact with culture-specific traditions to yield the diversity that is evident when mental representations are probed across many cultures. [Abstract copyright: © 2024. The Author(s).

Some Time Violations Go Less Noticed: Gestalt Grouping? A Brief Report

Submission to Timing & Time Perceptio

Gestalt Theory: Its Past, Stranding and Future...

This article focuses on the contributions of the founders of Gestalt theory, not only for the high value they carried even back then, but also for the strong relevance they have today. The main purpose is to point to the deficient, even wrong transmission of this perspective particularly in the past 50 years and to highlight its potential to connect the immense amount of accumulated but disconnected scientific facts and pieces within psychology as of today. The first part of this article discusses Max Wertheimer’s important 1912 “phi phenomenon” article and recounts the Gestalt theorists’ launch of their influential journal Psychologische Forschungen in 1922, the rise of the oppressive and violent Nazi regime in Germany, and the resulting emigration of the Gestalt founders to the US where they had to face a radically different perspective to psychology. The second part discusses the main postulates of the theory, focusing on how the movement emerged, its main theoretical perspective, and its work on perception. In a second and third article (Mungan, 2021a; 2021b), I will review their intriguing research and conceptualizations on memory and productive thinking, respectively. Hence, the current article should be read as the first in a series of three

Still ahead of their time: Gestalt theory's intriguing ideas and research in memory

This article is a sequel to “Gestalt Theory: Its Past, its Stranding, and its Future.” The aim of this article is to bring to light the conceptual and empirical contributions of Gestalt theory within the field of memory. It is typically believed that Gestalt theory is a theory about perception only. This, however, is not true. The first part of the article discusses some critical thoughts about memory processes as presented by Kurt Koffka in his Principles of Gestalt (1936) book. These involve Koffka’s proposal about the involvement and effects of memory processes in the perception of successive Gestalts; a discussion of the similarities and differences between percepts and memory traces; Koffka’s reference to research suggesting that memory traces are dynamic such that, depending on their Prägnanz, they will or will not change during storage in a way that can even be predicted in some cases. The article then reviews one of the most powerful empirical studies on memory within a Gestalt framework, i.e., Hedwig von Restorff’s 1933 dissertation demonstrating figure-ground dynamics in memory tasks. In the final part of this article, I present the main ideas of an utterly ignored memory researcher, Erich Goldmeier, from his 1982 book The Memory Trace: Its Formation and Its Fate. It is dismaying that these very original and interesting studies went unnoticed by mainstream cognitive psychology

Mood Judgments and Memory for Tunes: A Special Case of Levels of Processing?

Although levels of processing (LOP) effects are well-established in memory research, beneficial effects of “deep” orienting tasks have rarely been reported in studies of tune memory. Our prior work implicated mood judgments as one candidate for a beneficial orienting task. The current series explored both the robustness and potential explanations for that enhancement. In four experiments, we varied type of processing tasks (including mood and other putatively deep/conceptual and shallow/ perceptual tasks) and the familiarity of the tunes in a recognition paradigm, which included “remember/know” judgments. Experiment 1, with low-familiarity tunes, revealed a LOP effect for two conceptual (mood, continuation) over two perceptual (contour tracing, note counting) tasks in “remember” scores. This effect was most pronounced for the mood task. In Experiment 2a (high-familiarity tunes) and 2b (low-familiarity tunes), we found superiority of distinctiveness- and categorization-based orienting tasks over the control task of loudness ratings, but again for “remember” scores only; the first two tasks were equivalent. Finally, in Experiment 3, we asked participants to compare pairs of low-familiarity tunes on mood, distinctiveness, or length (control task). The mood task led to better memory than length judgments, and the distinctiveness task was marginally superior to length judgments. All four experiments revealed LOP effects only in “remember” scores. Mood judgment was the most consistently effective orienting task. Results are discussed in relation to models of memory, including how some tasks offer particularly effective “affordances” in some domains

Prognostic factors in Guillain-Barre syndrome

Objective: Guillain–Barre syndrome (GBS) is an immune-mediated disorder of peripheral nerves resulting as acute inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy. GBS has a heterogeneous clinical course and laboratory findings. Acute onset and progressive course, and is usually associated with a good prognosis but some forms have a poor prognosis. Factors that can affect the prognosis of GBS have been investigated in several studies. Assessment of poor prognostic factors of GBS plays a vital role in the management and monitorization of patients. Methods: In this retrospective study of patients admitted to the acute phase of GBS removing clinical and laboratory profiles and was planned to investigate the prognostic factors. Results: Totally 23 patients (Female/male: 16/7) were recruited. Mean age was 47 (range: 17-70) years. Statistically significant poor prognostic factors were advanced age (p=0.042), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (p=0.027) and serum albumin level (p=0.007). Conclusion: Advanced age, increased ESR and decreased albumin levels were found as poor prognostic factors in GBS