Identifies the "missing fundamental illusion" as that which occurs when two tones are heard together and the listener hears a third tone with a pitch corresponding to the difference in their frequencies. Describes an inexpensive and valid demonstration of the missing fundamental using a British police whistle. (MJP)

Points out that in languages in which nouns have a grammatical gender, word recognition can be estimated by gender-decision response times. Notes that although gender decision has yet to be used extensively, it has proved sensitive to several factors affecting lexical access and that this task can be used with linguistic information from other…

The video and standard audio portions of 2 television programs were presented to 25 adults with low vision and 24 adults with normal vision; 29 additional subjects only heard the standard audio portions. Subjects then answered questions based on audio descriptions (AD) provided by Descriptive Video Service. Results indicated that some AD…

Describes a pilot study of a computerized program for learning Chinese characters. The program, HyperCharacters, uses graphic symbols, sounds and animated presentation to produce an integrated learning environment. Study findings indicate that the program has proved its value via experimental study and interviews with students. (Two references)…

In two studies with 50 male and 50 female undergraduates, differences in learning highly interfering paired-associate discrimination tasks were compared with or without visual mediational cues and with aural cues only. Visual mediational instruction reduced interference between similar signals and facilitated their association with the correct…

Investigated whether there were differences in retention of language when both visual and auditory stimuli were employed as opposed to just a visual stimulus. It was found that reading-only resulted in higher scores on tests taken immediately, whereas combined listening and reading resulted in higher tests when tests were delayed. (12 references)…

Eleven British students (ages 16-19) with severe learning difficulties were presented with microcomputer switches which activated various visual and auditory contingencies. Students were able to indicate a preference for specific contingencies when placed in a carefully designed situation. Visual rewards did not generate strong preferences. (JDD)

Investigated whether beginning adult learners, given auditory stimuli, were equally likely to represent French gender subclasses using phonological, morphosyntactic, and/or semantic representations. Data from adult English speakers learning patterned French and translation equivalent lists indicated that the construct of input for gender learning…

This article reviews five self-management strategies used to help people with severe and profound developmental disabilities acquire and maintain constructive occupation: picture cues presented on sets of cards, picture cues stored in computer-aided systems, object cues attached to cards, verbal cues stored in audio recording devices, and…

Following pretraining with everyday objects, 14 children aged from 1 to 4 years were trained, for each of three pairs of different arbitrary wooden shapes (Set 1), to select one stimulus in response to the spoken word /zog/, and the other to /vek/. When given a test for the corresponding tacts ("zog" and "vek"), 10 children…

Dynamic assessment is applied to phonological disorders with the Scaffolding Scale of Stimulability (SSS). The SSS comprises a 21-point hierarchical scale of cues and linguistic environments. With the SSS, clinicians assess stimulability as a diagnostic indicator and use the measure to monitor progress across treatment. Unlike other phonological…

This study used an intact group comparison to examine attention following in 34 children aged 2 years diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) matched pairwise for vocabulary comprehension with a group of typically developing toddlers. For both groups of children, the presence of verbal labels during a referential task increased attention to…

This study examines the perception of paralinguistic intonational meanings deriving from Ohala's Frequency Code (Experiment 1) and Gussenhoven's Effort Code (Experiment 2) in British English and Dutch. Native speakers of British English and Dutch listened to a number of stimuli in their native language and judged each stimulus on four semantic…

We investigated learning-related changes in amplitude, scalp topography, and source localization of the mismatch negativity (MMN), a neurophysiological response correlated with auditory discrimination ability. Participants (n = 32) underwent two EEG recordings while they watched silent films and ignored auditory stimuli. Stimuli were a standard…

A possible role of the cerebellum in detecting and recognizing event sequences has been proposed. The present study sought to determine whether patients with cerebellar lesions are impaired in the acquisition and discrimination of sequences of sensory stimuli of different modalities. A group of 26 cerebellar patients and 26 controls matched for…