During spoken language comprehension, listeners transform continuous acoustic cues into categories (e.g. /b/ and /p/). While longstanding research suggests that phoneme categories are activated in a gradient way, there are also clear individual differences, with more gradient categorization being linked to various communication impairment like dyslexia and specific language impairments (Joanisse, Manis, Keating, & Seidenberg, 2000; López-Zamora, Luque, Álvarez, & Cobos, 2012; Serniclaes, Van Heghe, Mousty, Carré, & Sprenger-Charolles, 2004; Werker & Tees, 1987). Crucially, most studies have used two-alternative forced choice (2AFC) tasks to measure the sharpness of between-category boundaries. Here we propose an alternative paradigm that allows us to measure categorization gradiency in a more direct way. We then use this measure in an individual differences paradigm to: (a) examine the nature of categorization gradiency, (b) explore its links to different aspects of speech perception and other cognitive processes, (c) test different hypotheses about its sources, (d) evaluate its (positive/negative) role in spoken language comprehension, and (e) assess whether it can be modified via training. Our results provide validation for this new method of assessing phoneme categorization gradiency and offer valuable insights into the mechanisms that underlie speech perception.

Several fundamental questions about speech perception concern how listeners understand spoken language despite considerable variability in speech sounds across different contexts (the problem of lack of invariance in speech). This contextual variability is caused by several factors, including differences between individual talkers' voices, variation in speaking rate, and effects of coarticulatory context. A number of models have been proposed to describe how the speech system handles differences across contexts. Critically, these models make different predictions about (1) whether contextual variability is handled at the level of acoustic cue encoding or categorization, (2) whether it is driven by feedback from category-level processes or interactions between cues, and (3) whether listeners discard fine-grained acoustic information to compensate for contextual variability. Separating the effects of cue- and category-level processing has been difficult because behavioral measures tap processes that occur well after initial cue encoding and are influenced by task demands and linguistic information. Recently, we have used the event-related brain potential (ERP) technique to examine cue encoding and online categorization. Specifically, we have looked at differences in the auditory N1 as a measure of acoustic cue encoding and the P3 as a measure of categorization. This allows us to examine multiple levels of processing during speech perception and can provide a useful tool for studying effects of contextual variability. Here, I apply this approach to determine the point in processing at which context has an effect on speech perception and to examine whether acoustic cues are encoded continuously. Several types of contextual variability (talker gender, speaking rate, and coarticulation), as well as several acoustic cues (voice onset time, formant frequencies, and bandwidths), are examined in a series of experiments. The results suggest that (1) at early stages of speech processing, listeners encode continuous differences in acoustic cues, independent of phonological categories; (2) at post-perceptual stages, fine-grained acoustic information is preserved; and (3) there is preliminary evidence that listeners encode cues relative to context via feedback from categories. These results are discussed in relation to proposed models of speech perception and sources of contextual variability.

付記する学位プログラム名: デザイン学大学院連携プログラム / 京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(教育学) / 甲第22712号 / 教博第254号 / 新制||教||197(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院教育学研究科教育科学専攻 / (主査)教授 齊藤 智, 教授 Emmanuel MANALO, 准教授 野村 理朗, 教授 田中 利幸 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Philosophy (Education) / Kyoto University / DGAM

Natural recovery is inhibition or moderation of problematic substance use without employing the use of formal addiction services. A neuroanthropological approach to natural recovery highlights the importance of both social and biological aspects of achieving this "self" led process of change. Throughout this project I take a critical anthropological approach to natural recovery, which explores a more holistic conception and historically situated view of current natural recovery theory. This research project employs a neuroanthropological perspective to assess how college students perform natural recovery. Using ethnographic methods, which highlight the social and physical experience of moderation, I discuss how students negotiate pathways for cessation/moderation within the university structure. The university is increasingly a neoliberal space, which influences the way key stakeholders (faculty, staff, and students) perceive and pursue pathways for cessation/moderation. Thus, I found students pursue natural recovery by pulling on recovery capital, facilitated by the university, but outside of traditional cessation pathways, to stop problematic use. Additionally, I employed Bourdieu’s notions of practice and habitus to highlight how students negotiate their lives within this structure and pull on their recovery capital to mitigate cues, proposing a biocultural perspective of natural recovery. The goal of this research is to show how students leverage social relationships and cues in ways that are meaningful to sustaining abstinence/moderation without formal guidance or structure. This work contributes to the small body of literature already established around natural recovery and cue reactivity, and shows how ethnographic methods can and should be applied to both of these fields of research.

The study examined the overlap between cognitive and affective measures of alcohol expectancies as they related to risk for developing alcohol use disorders. It was hypothesized that cognitive-based, paper-and-pencil measures and appetitive psychophysiological reactivity to alcohol cues would correlate and independently correlate to drinking behavior in a sample of college drinkers. It was also hypothesized that genetic risk would impact the relationship between upstream and downstream expectancy measures, given that children of alcoholics displayed blunted reactivity to appetitive cues. A sample of 137 college drinkers (67 males; mean age = 20.23 ± 1.61) reporting a range of drinking behavior (mean quantity/occasion = 4.03 ± 2.34; mean frequency/month = 6.24 ± 4.31) and genetic risk for alcohol use disorders (47 children of alcoholics) participated in this study. The cue reactivity paradigm included the measurement of skin conductance, cardiac response, and acoustic startle eyeblink response to a randomized sequence of alcohol and neutral pictures. Questionnaires and interviews assessed alcohol expectancies, family history, drinking behavior, and risk. Findings revealed that cognitive and affective measures shared modest overlap in the overall sample, such that sedating and negative alcohol expectancies were positively correlated with less appetitive early acoustic startle response. However, alcohol expectancies were not significantly correlated with any of the remaining psychophysiological measures. Further, affective measures were not related to drinking behavior, indicating failure to detect drinking variance in a sample of college drinkers. Findings also indicated that genetic risk impacted the relationship between cognitive and affective measures of expectancy. Specifically, children of alcoholics (COAs) displayed stronger relationships between both positive and negative expectancies and early startle response than their peers. Further, COA Status moderated the relationship between early startle response and Social/Physical Pleasure and Positive/Arousing alcohol expectancies. This dissertation provided evidence that cognitive and affective measures of alcohol expectancies shared modest overlap, indicating that expectancy subscales and early acoustic startle response tapped into the same expectancy construct. Further, genetic risk moderated the strength of relationships between upstream and downstream expectancy measures, which were stronger in children of alcoholics. Overall, affective measures of expectancy were more sensitive to expectancy variation in high-risk college drinkers.

Research is needed that examines the effects of kiosk technology on restaurant operational performance measures, such as total sales. The study employs a 2X2 between-subjects field experimental design to empirically test the hypothesized relationships proposed in the research model. The data collection site was Burger King located in the student union of a large Tier 1 research university in southwest USA. The independent variables included ordering method (kiosk vs. cashier) and operational volume (peak vs. off-peak). The dependent variables were cognitive and affective attitudes, behavioral intention, satisfaction, sales per person, and order time. Consumers at Burger King were approached before they started ordering their meal to ask for voluntary participation. If they agreed to participate, they were randomly assigned into two test groups. Participants in one test group used kiosk technology to order their meals, while those in the other test groups spoke with a cashier to order their meals. The same number of participants were recruited from peak and non-peak volumes. The seconds used to order was observed and recorded after consumer engagement with the ordering method. After participants ordered, they completed a paper survey that measured their behaviors while ordering with each method and asked participants to indicate total purchase amount. Results of 192 surveys indicated to different extents that consumer behaviors were more positive with kiosk technology. Affective attitude results, however, were insignificant. On average, kiosk technology was found to be a faster method of ordering in quick-service restaurants, but it yielded less sales than when the consumer ordered from a cashier.

Processing Implicit and Explicit Representations (PIER2) is a model of memory that makes predictions about memory performance based on the interaction of known and newly acquired information by studying how implicitly activated associates affect episodic memory. Nelson and Zhang (2000) found a significant effect of cue connectivity in a multiple regression analysis of the variables known to affect cued recall, but at that time no manipulational experiments had studied the cue connectivity effect in the laboratory. The present paper presents a series of three experiments designed to investigate the effect of cue connectivity in the context of the PIER2 memory model to determine the importance of this variable in the prediction of cued recall. Results of the experiments were inconsistent, and a revised regression analysis performed on an updated version of Nelson and Zhang's (2000) cued recall database indicated that cue connectivity was no longer a significant predictor of cued recall performance. It was concluded that PIER2's equations do not need to be modified to include the influence of retrieval cue attributes.

Research has shown that people often fail to notice changes to visual scenes. This phenomenon is known as change blindness. This study investigated the effect of facial feature transformations on change blindness using change detection tasks involving a person as the object of change. 301 participants viewed a photo-story comprised of a few still frames. In the final frame, a selected facial feature of a character in the story was altered. Four different photo-stories were used, each utilising a different alteration. Questionnaires designed to determine whether the change was detected were administered. Results showed that changes to facial features considered to be more salient produced higher levels of change detection. A flicker test using the same images from the photo-story was administered to a further 75 participants and showed a similar pattern of results. It was concluded that in order to detect change, the changing stimuli have to be both salient and meaningful.

<p>  </p> <p>Posttraumatic stress disorder involves a constellation of neural and behavioral alterations in response to trauma exposure. Aside from symptoms involved in posttraumatic stress disorder diagnosis, patients frequently present with working memory impairments. Working memory training has been established as an effective intervention to reduce posttraumatic stress symptoms. Working memory is associated with posttraumatic stress disorder in that it is commonly impaired in patients and that training can reduce the severity of posttraumatic stress symptoms. Taken together, these points suggest the possibility of a shared mechanism between working memory and posttraumatic stress disorder but working memory has not been studied thoroughly in rodent models of posttraumatic stress disorder. The present study utilizes footshock trauma to induce a posttraumatic stress state in rats and evaluates the effect of trauma and trauma-paired cues on working memory performance. Results demonstrate the emergence of chronic deficits in working memory among traumatized animals three weeks post-trauma. Presentation of trauma-paired cues caused further decrement in working memory performance. Regression analysis indicates that the degree of working memory impairment in response to a trauma-paired cue can be significantly predicted by behavioral phenotypes typic of diagnostic symptoms for posttraumatic stress disorder. This study enhances existing animal models by replicating the clinical observations of working memory deficits associated with posttraumatic stress disorder. This will pave the way for future work to probe underlying mechanistic dysregulation of working memory following trauma exposure and for future development of novel treatment strategies. </p>

Consumer demand for organic products has increased due to growing awareness of climate change and sustainability. However, the higher price of organic products is a barrier for some consumers. Previous research has examined various factors that influence consumers’ perceptions of organic products, but little attention has been paid to the influence of small firm cues. Understanding how small firm cues affect consumer behaviour could fill this gap and help small wineries overcome resistance to the price premium.  This study aims to investigate how the perception of small firm cues influences consumers’ willingness to pay for organic products, using organic wine as an example. Understanding this relationship can help small wineries market their products effectively and encourage them to switch to organic farming.  To fulfil the purpose of this thesis, a quantitative study was conducted. An online survey was developed with an experimental design to answer the research question empirically. Respondents were randomly assigned to either the control group or the experimental group. The experimental group was shown an organic wine label with a small firm cue and the control group with no cue.  The analyses showed that signalling a company’s small size did not affect consumers’ willingness to pay. Factors such as trustworthiness, perceived quality, and made with love did not affect the relationship between small firm cues and consumers’ willingness to pay. However, presenting a small firm cue resulted in increased consumer perceptions that the product is made with love. Nevertheless, this perception did not correspond to a higher willingness to pay.