Denna experimentella studie undersökte om maskerande brusljud på ovidkommande tal påverkar inlärning av visuell information. Experimentet genomfördes i ett laboratorium med 32 försöksdeltagare. Visuella ord presenterades för försöksdeltagarna samtidigt som auditivt tal från samma semantiska kategori, med eller utan maskerande brusljud, presenterades. De visuella orden skulle återges i valfri ordning. Resultatet av studien visar att ett maskerande brusljud på ovidkommande tal har positiv effekt på inlärningsförmågan. Detta visades av att försökspersonerna mindes fler visuellt presenterade ord samt att de lyckades ignorera det ovidkommande talet bättre då talet maskerades av ett brusljud jämfört med om talet inte maskerades av ett brusljud. Resultaten av studien kan med fördel tillämpas i öppna kontorslandskap. Detta då medarbetare i öppna kontorslandskap ofta utför kognitivt krävande uppgifter i en bullrig miljö innehållande bland annat bakgrundstal. Ett maskerande brusljud kan minska störningen av ovidkommande kontorsljud och ovidkommande tal och på så sätt positivt påverka arbetsprestationen. / This study examined if a masking white noise on irrelevant speech affects the encoding of visual information. An experiment was carried out in a laboratory with 32 participants. The participants were presented to a series of written words and were prompted to recall these words in any order. While the participants studied the written words, irrelevant speech from the same semantic category was presented with or without a masking noise. The participants were told to ignore the irrelevant speech. The results of this study showed that the number of intrusions from the irrelevant speech decreases and the number of recalled written words increases when the irrelevant speech is masked by a white noise compared to irrelevant speech without a masking noise. The findings of this study could be applied in the acoustic design of open-plan offices where cognitive tasks, such as reading comprehension and proofreading, are performed in a noisy environment. A white noise can reduce the intelligibility of office noise and irrelevant speech, which have positive effect on work performance.

<p><b>Objectives.</b>The general objectives of this dissertationwere to examine the effects of acute exposure to meaningfulirrelevant speech and road traffic noise on memory performance,and to explore annoyance responses to noise exposure in theschool environment for pupils and teachers in different agegroups.</p><p><b>Methods</b>. The thesis comprises seven papers, representingdifferent methodological approaches: experiments, surveystudies and interviews. In the experiments, reported in PapersI-V, 288 pupils and teachers participated in the age groups,13-14 years (n=96), 18-20 years (n=96), 35-45 years (n=48) and55-65 years (n=48). The subjects were randomly assigned to oneof three conditions: (a) meaningful irrelevant speech, (b) roadtraffic noise, and (c) silence. The equivalent sound level inthe noise conditions was set to 66 dB(A). A test batteryreflecting episodic and semantic memory were used. The surveystudies, reported in Paper VI and VII, included 207 pupils(M=13.5) and 166 teachers (M=45.9). Two separate questionnairesmainly comprising items about annoyance, noise sensitivity andstress symptoms were administered. Paper VI presents results offocus group interviews (n=16) treating the main topics:disturbing sounds, emotions, ongoing activity, and suggestionsconcerning future changes. Results. The overall findings showedthat both noise sources affected episodic and semantic memoryto the same degree for all age groups. The results indicatedthat the similarity of semantic content between noise and thetask at hand was not the only suitable explanation model, sincea non-speech noise impaired memory as much as speech.</p><p><b>Results</b>also indicated that attention effects did notmediate the obtained noise effects and that the noise effectsdid not differ between age groups. Therefore, it seemedunlikely that different memory and attentional capacities stoodout as explanatory factors of the memory effects. Sinceperformances of both episodic and semantic memory tasks wereimpaired, the explanation based on level of access to long-termmemory was also ruled out. However, the episodic memory task,reading comprehension, stood out to be most impaired by noise,suggesting that complexity of the task to perform was ofimportance. For reading comprehension there was also adifferent noise pattern obtained. Participants performance wasin this task, more impaired by meaningful irrelevant speechthan by road traffic noise. This effect indicated thatmeaningful irrelevant speech might reduce the availablecognitive resources necessary for learning the text. Theannoyance models derived from the survey studies indicated thatsensitivity acted as a mediator between hearing status andannoyance, with stress symptoms as an outcome. Whetherannoyance arises or not was also determined by control andpredictability of the noise. In the interviews a differentannoyance pattern was found, in that stress symptoms appearedto be a determinant of annoyance. To be involved, respected,take own responsibility and respect others were suggestions onhow to change the environment to become more silent.</p><p><b>Conclusions.</b>For both pupils and teachers acute exposureto meaningful irrelevant speech and road traffic noiseinfluenced both the achieving and providing of knowledge. Acommon annoyance pattern was also found for pupils andteachers, where individual and situational factors were ofimportance. To achieve a more silent school environment in thefuture, the pupils pointed out that the interaction betweenthemselves and their teachers was of importance.</p><p><b>Key words:</b>Noise, meaningful irrelevant speech, roadtraffic noise, memory, age groups, school environment, pupils,teachers</p>

This study responds to the globally increasing rate of caesarean section, and specifically to the very high rate of elective caesarean section among Taiwanese mothers as evidence suggests that such elective caesareans pose potential health risks for mothers and babies. The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate a multi-component instrument based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to better understand Taiwanese pregnant women's decisions regarding their childbirth delivery options (spontaneous vaginal delivery or elective caesarean section). The study was a four-phased mixed method design. First, the TPB guided item development and instrument drafting. Second, pretesting and instrument refinement used cognitive interviewing with a small sample of Taiwanese pregnant women. Third, the instrument was administered to 310 such women to examine psychometric properties of the component scales. Fourth, the phase 3 instrument was re-administered to 30 women to estimate item stability. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) were used to assess construct validity of the multi-item, multi-component measurement model with LISREL 9.1. Based on the TPB, the 52-item self-administered Childbirth Delivery Options Questionnaire (CDOQ) was developed to measure three components: intention regarding delivery options, attitudes toward delivery options, and perceptions of significant others' (partner, mother, and mother-in-law) feelings about delivery options. Respondents from phase two thought that the items on the CDOQ were easy to read and comprehend; they reported favorably on the wording and formatting. Preliminary item analysis revealed that the items referring to dangerousness of delivery options did not function as intended and were dropped because they did not differentiate between the two delivery options, leaving 36 items. Test-retest reliability indicated that responses to each item were positively correlated and those referring to spontaneous vaginal delivery were more stable than those referring to elective caesarean section. Corrected item-to-total correlations and expected change in Cronbach's alpha if item deleted revealed that four items might form a measure of general social norms associated with the Taiwanese culture. The Cronbach's alphas for the components of the CDOQ ranged from .55 to .89. The measurement model incorporating the design features of the CDOQ fitted the data well using the CFA. Because serious problems with multicollinearity and suppression were revealed, Beckstead's (2012) criterion-irrelevant-variance-omitted (CIVO) regression method was used to untangle the suppressor effects when predicting intention from the other components of the CDOQ. The results indicated that attitude and partner's feelings were significant and explained the bulk of the variance in intentions. The TPB-based instrument developed here will be of considerable use to maternal-child health researchers. The findings of this study suggest that decisions regarding delivery options may be modified by interventions geared toward pregnant women's attitudes within family- and cultural-centered prenatal programs.

A critical function of perception is the organization of temporally spaced input. This is accomplished through grouping, a process by which within-group elements are integrated with one another to form a cohesive unit. Grouping also requires boundaries to set off within-group elements from unrelated stimuli. In the temporal domain, grouping may be accomplished through use of an implicit working memory system that connects temporally spaced information. Temporal group boundaries may be created by reductions in the default integrative processes of this memory system. The present experiments probed integration strength by embedding priming tasks within temporal groups (i.e., events). Because priming also draws upon implicit working memory, priming strength should reflect the strength of integration. If modulation of temporal integration is responsible for grouping, this should be manifested as a reduction of priming across boundaries. Irrelevant feature priming tasks were used to assess integration strength. Participants responded to one of two independently varying object features. In this form of priming, change consistency of relevant and irrelevant features produces faster reaction times, resulting in a crossed interaction. This interaction served as a meter for the strength of temporal integration. The experiments included a variety of temporal grouping manipulations. Experiments involving rhythmic groups, spatial shifts, rotations, pitch, and timbre, as well as higher-level conceptual shifts, demonstrated reduced priming in across-boundary conditions. Both visual and auditory events were used, and experiments demonstrated that viewers’ interpretation of a scene contributed to the observed effects. Temporal integration does appear to be reduced at certain event boundaries, suggesting that this may be the general manner in which temporal grouping is accomplished. Motion change, a boundary from event segmentation research, did not reduce priming, indicating that the process presently under study differs from that studied using explicit segmentation procedures. The reduction of integration may correspond to a subjective, amodal experience of separation. The present technique may therefore offer an objective, implicit method to assess this sense of separation. Using this method, it is possible to reliably determine when people are experiencing temporal group boundaries even when they are not deliberately attending to them. / text

abstract: Watanabe, Náñez, and Sasaki (2001) introduced a phenomenon they named “task-irrelevant perceptual learning” in which near-threshold stimuli that are not essential to a given task can be associatively learned when consistently and concurrently paired with the focal task. The present study employs a visual paired-shapes recognition task, using colored polygon targets as salient attended focal stimuli, with the goal of comparing the increases in perceptual sensitivity observed when near-threshold stimuli are temporally paired in varying manners with focal targets. Experiment 1 separated and compared the target-acquisition and target-recognition phases and revealed that sensitivity improved most when the near-threshold motion stimuli were paired with the focal target-acquisition phase. The parameters of sensitivity improvement were motion detection, critical flicker fusion threshold (CFFT), and letter-orientation decoding. Experiment 2 tested perceptual learning of near-threshold stimuli when they were offset from the focal stimuli presentation by ±350 ms. Performance improvements in motion detection, CFFT, and decoding were significantly greater for the group in which near-threshold motion was presented after the focal target. Experiment 3 showed that participants with reading difficulties who were exposed to focal target-acquisition training improved in sensitivity in all visual measures. Experiment 4 tested whether near-threshold stimulus learning occurred cross-modally with auditory stimuli and served as an active control for the first, second, and third experiments. Here, a tone was paired with all focal stimuli, but the tone was 1 Hz higher or lower when paired with the targeted focal stimuli associated with recognition. In Experiment 4, there was no improvement in visual sensitivity, but there was significant improvement in tone discrimination. Thus, this study, as a whole, confirms that pairing near-threshold stimuli with focal stimuli can improve performance in just tone discrimination, or in motion detection, CFFT, and letter decoding. Findings further support the thesis that the act of trying to remember a focal target also elicited greater associative learning of correlated near-threshold stimulus than the act of recognizing a target. Finally, these findings support that we have developed a visual learning paradigm that may potentially mitigate some of the visual deficits that are often experienced by the reading disabled. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Psychology 2016

Cette thèse propose une approche, par les méthodes du groupe de renormalisation non perturbatif, de phénomènes critiques dans des systèmes à l'équilibre. Ce travail se scinde en deux parties. La première présente des modèles où $\gamma_+$ et $\gamma_-$, les exposants de la susceptibilité dans les phases haute et basse température, sont génériquement différents. Dans ces modèles, les symétries continues sont explicitement brisées par des anisotropies discrètes qui sont inessentielles au sens du groupe de renormalisation. Nous calculons avec précision $\gamma_+-\gamma_-$ ainsi que le rapport $\nu/\nu'$ des exposants des deux longueurs de corrélation présentes pour $T<T_c$. La seconde partie est consacrée aux applications de l'approximation BMW, une approximation récente du groupe de renormalisation non perturbatif. D'une part, sont présentées les méthodes d'analyse numérique utilisées pour résoudre les équations intégro-différentielles non linéraires générées par l'approximation BMW. D'autre part, ces méthodes sont appliquées concrètement pour étudier le régime critique du modèle d'Ising bidimensionnel et ses états liés dans la phase basse température en dimension $2\leq d \leq4$. Ces applications en différentes dimensions témoignent de la grande précision de l'approximation BMW, de la facilité à changer la dimension, qui n'est qu'un paramètre, et ouvrent la voie à de nombreuses applications. / This thesis broaches the study of critical phenomena in equilibrium systems using non-perturbative renormalisation group methods. This work is divided into two parts.The first one presents models where $\gamma_+$ and $\gamma_-$, the exponents of the susceptibility in the high and low temperature phases, are generically different. In these models,continuous symmetries are explicitly broken down by discrete anisotropies that are irrelevant in the renormalization-group sense. We compute accurately $\gamma_+ -\gamma_-$as well as the ratio $\nu/\nu'$ of the exponents of the two correlation lengths present for $T<T_c$. The second part is devoted to applications of the BMW approximation which is a recent approximation of the non-perturbative renormalisation group.On the one hand, a review of the numerical analysis methods used to solve the nonlinear integro-differential equations generated by the BMW approximation is provided.On the other hand, these methods are applied to study the critical regime of the Ising model in dimension two and its bound states in the low-temperature phase in dimension $2\leq d \leq4$. These applications in different dimensions demonstate the accuracy of the BMW approximation can be, the easiness to change of dimension which a simple parameter and pave the way for numerous applications.

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The present Research Topic “It's irrelevant for the task but interesting!—How children process and attend to task-irrelevant information” comprises two aspects of cognitive control from a developmental point of view. The first aspect includes the development of children's attention control in different contexts such as emotion processing or novelty processing. The second aspect focuses on the development of children's ability to inhibit actions. The Research Topic addresses research with healthy children and with children suffering from the Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). It brings together different perspectives on the development of attention control during infancy, childhood, and adolescence. This combination can contribute to new perspectives for future research and can enhance our knowledge about the development of cognitive functions, particularly about the developmental pathway of mechanisms of attention control.

L’irrelevant process, décrit par George Brecht en quelques lignes au sein de son texte Chance-Imagery(1957), est une méthode de création d’ « images du hasard », proche de l’idée de « non-intentionnalité ».Cette thèse analyse cette description et en étudie les enjeux dans le cadre de la création de dessins et depeintures, au travers de l’idée de « machine à dessiner » et de celle d’« image trouvée ». L’étude dequelques démarches artistiques issues de la seconde moitié du XXème siècle et exemplifiant cette typologienous amène à considérer que l’irrelevant process consiste notamment en l’adoption d’une perspectiveintentionnelle et esthétique sur des processus et des traces « non-pertinents » avec la créationd’images. / The “irrelevant process”, briefly described by George Brecht in Chance-Imagery (1957), is a method forcreating “chance-images”, close to the idea of ”non-intentionality”. Our thesis analyses this description andstudies its issues for the creation of paintings and drawings, through the ideas of « drawing machine » and« found image ». The study of some artistic practices which illustrate this typology brings us to think thatthe irrelevant process involves the adoption of an intentional and aesthetic point of view on processes andtraces which are irrelevant with the creation of images.