Whereas previous research has demonstrated that trait ratings of faces at encoding leads to enhanced recognition accuracy as compared to feature ratings, this set of experiments examines whether ratings given after encoding and just prior to recognition influence face recognition accuracy. In Experiment 1 subjects who made feature ratings just prior to recognition were significantly less accurate than subjects who made no ratings or trait ratings. In Experiment 2 ratings were manipulated at both encoding and retrieval. The retrieval effect was smaller and nonsignificant, but a combined probability analysis showed that it was significant when results from both experiments are considered jointly. In a third experiment exposure duration at retrieval, a potentially confounding factor in Experiments 1 and 2, had a nonsignificant effect on recognition accuracy, suggesting that it probably does not explain the results from Experiments 1 and 2. These experiments demonstrate that face recognition accuracy can be influenced by processing instructions at retrieval.

The present study examines the effect of context on the use of transitions as cues to vowel perception. Thirty V₁CV₂CV₁ utterances were recorded, with V₁ being one of the three vowels /a,i,u/, and V₂ one of ten English vowels (/ i , I, el, E, ae, a,^,Ou,U,u/). After removal of the outer vowels (V₁), three sets of stimuli were created from the CV₂C parts: (1) unmodified controls (CO); (2) V₂ steady-state only (SS); and (3) transitions only (TR). Twenty subjects were asked to identify V₂. Subjects and speaker were matched for dialect and all subjects had some phonetics training. Results showed significant differences across conditions and contexts. Scores for SS stimuli, for all contexts, were as high as for CO stimuli. Performance on the TR stimuli was as good as on the other two conditions for two of the contexts. However, for the TR condition--/a/ context, performance was considerably worse than for any other combination of conditions and contexts. Possible reasons for this are discussed, and the need for testing of other vowel contexts is emphasised. It is concluded that, in some V₁CV₂CV₁ contexts, transitions can provide information about vowel identity on a level equal to steady-state alone, or to the combined information provided by both transitions and steady-states. This effect, however, is not uniform across contexts. For at least one context, transitions alone are not sufficient to cue vowel identity at a level comparable to steady-state or combined information. This lack of uniformity suggests that the role of transitions varies with the type of vowel context present, and conclusions about general usefulness await systematic testing of a number of vowel contexts. / Medicine, Faculty of / Audiology and Speech Sciences, School of / Graduate

In the present study, the dichotic perception of "automatic" speech in normal subjects was investigated. Four dichotic tapes were presented, under both single-pair and double-paired conditions. The first tape consisted of "automatic" word pairs, and the second contained "propositional" word pairs. The third and fourth tapes, which were identical but presented on opposite channels, consisted of "automatic-propositional" word pairs. Subjects responded orally to the stimuli. Differences in order of report and distribution of errors were evaluated by means of Wilcoxon's Matched-Pairs Signed-Ranks Test. A significant right ear advantage was found for both automatic and propositional stimuli, indicating lateralization of processing to the dominant hemisphere. Responses to the third and fourth tape varied significantly, suggesting that automatic and propositional words constitute different modes of language, and therefore undergo different sub-cortical processing. The results of the present investigation are examined in relation to the existing model of automatic speech representation. Certain contradictions are noted. The limitations of the experiment, as well as suggestions for further research, are discussed. / Medicine, Faculty of / Audiology and Speech Sciences, School of / Graduate

Subliminal perception is defined as a process whereby a subject reports no awareness of a visual stimulus, and yet his/her verbal behavior, subjectively experienced as “guesses”, is influenced by the stimulation. Various studies have found evidence for and against subliminal perception using discrimination tasks and subjective judgments. Explanations of subliminal perception include the partial cue hypothesis, the theory of perception of structural differences, and the theory that responses to subliminal stimuli are of a semantic nature. This study was conducted to determine whether subliminal perception involves a discrimination of structural characteristics or a discrimination of the semantic quality of words prior to specific identification. It was also an attempt to find the relationship between the level of stimulus awareness and the type of response.

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