Informational masking in young and elderly listeners for speech masked by simultaneous speech and noise

Three experiments measured the effects of age on informational masking of speech by competing speech. The experiments were designed to minimize the energetic contributions of the competing speech so that informational masking could be measured with no large corrections for energetic masking. Experiment 1 used a "speech-in-speech-in-noise" design, in which the competing speech was presented in noise at a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of -4 dB. This ensured that the noise primarily contributed the energetic masking but the competing speech contributed the informational masking. Equal amounts of informational masking (3 dB) were observed for young and elderly listeners, although less was found for hearing-impaired listeners. Experiment 2 tested a range of SNRs in this design and showed that informational masking increased with SNR up to about an SNR of -4 dB, but decreased thereafter. Experiment 3 further reduced the energetic contribution of the competing speech by filtering it into different frequency bands from the target speech. The elderly listeners again showed approximately the same amount of informational masking (4-5 dB), although some elderly listeners had particular difficulty understanding these stimuli in any condition. On the whole, these results suggest that young and elderly listeners were equally susceptible to informational masking. © 2009 Acoustical Society of America.

K-Contagion: Sound, Space and Speed in Psy's 'Gangnam Style'

Park Jae-Sang’s (otherwise known as PSY) bewilderingly successful pop contagion ‘Gangnam Style’ needs no introduction. As of January 2013, it has become the most watched video in YouTube’s history and has garnered over 1.23 billion hits since. ‘Gangnam Style’ has also become a rapid global pop phenomenon with multiple parodic reproductions, imitations and adaptations; Rapper PSY himself has become an international name and styled as the ‘anti-hero’ of the glamour-driven K-pop scene. His fame has transcended the social sphere and permeated the political stratosphere with politicians such as Barrack Obama and David Cameron being among the many whom PSY has exchanged pleasantries with. Apart from breaking ground and creating social and media history in many ways, ‘Gangnam Style’ has even been purported by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon to be a “force for world peace” – cultural barriers are demolished as the world dances. Underlying this sentiment is the video’s almost universal appeal that assumes a supracultural yet equally paradoxical translatability: Korea’s neoteric ‘K-Wave’ phenomenon is at once local yet global, and where the latter is predicated on the former quality. The paper’s concern is thus two-fold. It will consider the dromological aspects of this musical contagion as it exemplifies and performs quite literally Paul Virilio’s thesis that the modern condition is driven by speed yet arrested to a dictatorship of movement. While many theories have been put forward for this astounding pop peculiarity, this paper would also examine the intercultural currents that advocate such a global (pop) cultural response. Through an analysis of sonic qualities – digital techno-beat rhythms, synth-based musicality, cyclical lyrics, horse-galloping movements – and acoustic receptions, it will consider the simultaneous and dichotomous currents of glocalisation and globalisation as it relates to the ways in which sonic ‘hyper-links’ establish new concepts of global-cultural identities even as these seem to be interrogated in the borderless worlds of hyper-mediatised realities and cultural technologies.

Isolating Informational Masking in Both Pure and Complex Tone Sequences

Objectives: Interference between a target and simultaneous maskers occurs both at the cochlear level through energetic masking and more centrally through informational masking (IM). Hence, quantifying the amount of IM requires a strict control of the energetic component. Presenting target and maskers on different sides (i.e., dichotically) reduces energetic masking but provides listeners with important lateralization cues that also drastically reduce IM. The main purpose of this study (Experiment 1) was to evaluate a "switch" manipulation aiming at restoring most of the IM despite dichotic listening. Experiment 2 was designed to investigate the source of the difficulty induced by this switching dichotic condition.

Design: In Experiment 1, the authors presented 60 normal-hearing young adults with a detection task in which a regularly repeating target was embedded in a randomly varying background masker. The authors evaluated spatial masking release induced by three different dichotic listening conditions in comparison with a diotic baseline. Dichotic stimuli were presented in either a nonswitching or a switching condition. In the latter case, the presentation sides of dichotic target and maskers alternated several times throughout 10 sec sequences. The impact of the number of switches on IM was investigated parametrically, with both pure and complex tone sequences. In Experiment 2, the authors compared performance of 13 young, normal-hearing listeners in a monotic and dichotic version of the rapidly switching condition, using pure-tone sequences.

Results: When target and maskers switched rapidly within sequences, IM was significantly stronger than in nonswitching dichotic sequences and was comparable with the masking effect induced by diotic sequences. Furthermore, Experiment 2 suggests that rapidly switching target and maskers prevent listeners from relying on lateralization cues inherent to the dichotic condition, hence preserving important amounts of IM.

Conclusions: This paradigm thus provides an original tool to isolate IM in signal and maskers having overlapping spectra.

UK Public Private Partnerships and the Credit Crunch: A Case of Risk Contagion?

During the past twenty years, the UK has relied heavily on Public Private Partnerships (PPP) and especially the Private Finance Initiative in the procurement of infrastructure and services. Discussing the causes of the credit crunch and its effects on PPP, this paper notes that the provision of new public sector infrastructure and related services has been adversely affected by the impact of the credit crunch on Private Finance Initiatives (PFIs). These problems have arisen primarily from the unwillingness of commercial banks to replace collapsed PFI bond financing unless new PFI contracts reduce financial risks; which, in turn, is likely to increase the cost of these projects to the public sector. Additional financial strains have arisen for the UK government from the need to bail out collapsed PFI projects. Overall we find evidence that the UK commitment to PFI has not only increased immediate fiscal pressures on the UK when these have become least palatable, but has also created fiscal vulnerabilities at local and national levels which are likely to hamper the country’s ability to launch counter-cyclical responses to the ongoing crisis.

Revisited: the inertia tensor as a proprioceptive invariant in humans

A multitude of tasks that we perform on a daily basis require precise information about the orientation of our limbs with respect to the environment and the objects located within it. Recent studies have suggested that the inertia tensor, a physical property whose values are time- and co-ordinate-indepenclent, may be an important informational invariant used by the proprioceptive system to control the movements of our limbs (Pagano et al., Ecol. Psychol. 8 (1996) 43; Pagano and Turvey, Percept. Psychophys. 52 (1992) 617; Pagano and Turvey, J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 21 (1995) 1070). We tested this hypothesis by recording the angular errors made by subjects when pointing to virtual targets in the dark. Close examination of the pointing errors made did not show any significant effects of the inertia tensor modifications on pointing accuracy. The kinematics of the pointing movements did not indicate that any on-line adjustments were being made to compensate for the inertia tensor changes. The implications of these findings with respect to the functioning of the proprioceptive system are discussed.

Intercepting beats in predesignated target zones

Moving to a rhythm necessitates precise timing between the movement of the chosen limb and the timing imposed by the beats. However, the temporal information specifying the moment when a beat will sound (the moment onto which one must synchronise one's movement) is not continuously provided by the acoustic array. Because of this informational void, the actors need some form of prospective information that will allow them to act sufficiently ahead of time in order to get their hand in the right place at the right time. In this acoustic interception study, where participants were asked to move between two targets in such a way that they arrived and stopped in the target zone at the same time as a beat sounded, we tested a model derived from tau-coupling theory (Lee DN (1998) Ecol Psychol 10:221-250). This model attempts to explain the form of a potential timing guide that specifies the duration of the inter-beat intervals and also describes how this informational guide can be used in the timing and guidance of movements. The results of our first experiment show that, for inter-beat intervals of less than 3 s, a large proportion of the movement (over 70%) can be explained by the proposed model. However, a second experiment, which augments the time between beats so that it surpasses 3 s, shows a marked decline in the percentage of information/movement coupling. A close analysis of the movement kinematics indicates a lack of control and anticipation in the participants' movements. The implications of these findings, in light of other research studies, are discussed.

Optic variables used to judge future ball arrival position in expert and novice soccer players

Although many studies have looked at the perceptual-cognitive strategies used to make anticipatory judgments in sport, few have examined the informational invariants that our visual system may be attuned to. Using immersive interactive virtual reality to simulate the aerodynamics of the trajectory of a ball with and without sidespin, the present study examined the ability of expert and novice soccer players to make judgments about the ball's future arrival position. An analysis of their judgment responses showed how participants were strongly influenced by the ball's trajectory. The changes in trajectory caused by sidespin led to erroneous predictions about the ball's future arrival position. An analysis of potential informational variables that could explain these results points to the use of a first-order compound variable combining optical expansion and optical displacement.

Judging the ‘passability’ of dynamic gaps in a virtual rugby environment

Affordances have recently been proposed as a guiding principle in perception–action research in sport (Fajen, Riley, & Turvey, 2009). In the present study, perception of the ’passability’ affordance of a gap between two approaching defenders in rugby is explored. A simplified rugby gap closure scenario was created using immersive, interactive virtual reality technology where 14 novice participants (attacker) judged the passability of the gap between two virtual defenders via a perceptual judgment (button press) task. The scenario was modeled according to tau theory (Lee, 1976) and a psychophysical function was fitted to the response data. Results revealed that a tau-based informational quantity could account for 82% of the variance in the data. Findings suggest that the passability affordance in this case, is defined by this variable and participants were able to use it in order to inform prospective judgments as to passability. These findings contribute to our understanding of affordances and how they may be defined in this particular sporting scenario; however, some limitations regarding methodology, such as decoupling perception and action are also acknowledged.

Prospective information for pass decisional behaviour in Rugby Union

Decision-making requires the perception of relevant information variables that emerge from the player–environment interaction. The purpose of the present article is to empirically assess whether players’ decisional behavior about which type of pass to make is influenced by the spatio-temporal variable tau. Time series positional data of rugby players were analyzed from video footage taken in real match scenarios. The tau of the distance motion gap between attacker and defender was calculated, along with the duration of the next pass. Results revealed that the initial tau value predicted 64% of the variance found in pass duration. A qualitative distinction of tau dynamics between two periods of the approach between the attacker and the defender was also observed. We argue that the time-to-contact between the attacker and the defender may yield information about future pass possibilities. Additionally, the informational fields constraining attacker–defender interaction may be viewed as a convergent channeling of possibilities towards a single pass solution.

Teaching family carers about home based palliative care: Final results from a group education program

Without the considerable support provided by family carers, many patients receiving palliative care would be unable to remain at home. However, family carers typically lack the required information and skills to prepare them for such a role. Pilot work has demonstrated that group education programs for family carers can be readily developed; they are feasible, accessible, and useful. This project sought to build on our pilot research to further examine the effectiveness of a group education program by evaluating the outcomes with a larger number of participants. The program aimed to prepare primary family carers for the role of supporting a relative with advanced, noncurative cancer at home. The psycho-educational program consisted of three consecutive weekly sessions presented in a group format, conducted at six home-based palliative care services across metropolitan and regional Victoria, Australia. The following dependent variables were measured at three time points: carer competence, preparedness, rewards, and information needs. The three time points were: commencement of the program (Time 1), upon completion (Time 2), and two weeks later (Time 3). A total of 156 participants (including the pilot phase) completed Time 1 questionnaires and 96 completed all three time periods (62%). Between Time 1 and Time 2, the intervention had a statistically significant positive effect on preparedness, competence, rewards, and having informational needs met. Outcomes were maintained at Time 3. There was no difference in the effectiveness of the intervention for participants in regional areas compared to participants in metropolitan areas.

This study demonstrated that a group education program to prepare family carers for the role of supporting a dying relative at home was effective. Implications for further research and practice are outlined.

Unemployment Benefits and Reservation Wages: Key Elasticities from a Stripped-Down Job Search Approach

This paper exploits survey information on reservation wages and data on actual wages from the European Community Household Panel to deduce, in the manner of Lancaster and Chesher, additional parameters of a stylized structural search model; specifically, reservation wage and transition/duration elasticities. The informational requirements of this approach are minimal, thereby facilitating comparisons between countries. Further, its policy content is immediate in so far as the impact of unemployment benefit rules and measures increasing the arrival rate of job offers are concerned. These key elasticities are computed for the United Kingdom and 11 other European nations.

History, an Exit Strategy: The Retrofuture Fabulations of kara lynch

A cartographer constructs a map of an individual creative history, that of the American artist kara lynch, as it emerges in connection to a collective history of African American cultural expression. Positioning history as complex, dynamic systems of interwoven memory networks, the map follows lynch’s traversals through various “zones of cultural haunting”: places where collective memories made invisible through systematic processes of cultural erasure may be recovered and revived. Through these traversals, which are inspired by lynch’s “forever project” Invisible, the map covers such terrains as haunted narratives, mechanisms of abstraction and coding within African American media production, water as an informational technology, the distribution of memory in blood, the dialectics of materiality and immateriality that frame considerations of black subjectivity, and the possibility that place of music might not be the site of sound but instead the social production of memory.

Contemporary Radio Art and Spatial Politics: The Critical Radio Utopias of Anna Friz

The article explores the work of the Canadian sound artist Anna Friz over the last decade. Her work deals explicitly with issues of technology and the relative absence of women's voices on radio. Exploring her work as a composer, installation artist, instrumentalist, performance artist and storyteller, and contextualising these practices within feminist critiques and radio conventions, the article explores Friz's ‘self-reflexive radio’. Ideas of ‘supermodernity’, ‘displacement’ and ‘critical utopia’ are deployed to discuss specific pieces of Friz's work in relation to identity and space. The article argues that Friz reconfigures the radio as a site of resistance to dominant constructions of contemporary globalised space and cultures, the politics of informational capitalism and the uneven flows that these cultures and politics engender.