The developmental pattern of stimulus and response interference in a color-object Stroop task: an ERP study

Background

Several studies have shown that Stroop interference is stronger in children than in adults. However, in a standard Stroop paradigm, stimulus interference and response interference are confounded. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether interference at the stimulus level and the response level are subject to distinct maturational patterns across childhood. Three groups of children (6–7 year-olds, 8–9 year-olds, and 10–12 year-olds) and a group of adults performed a manual Color-Object Stroop designed to disentangle stimulus interference and response interference. This was accomplished by comparing three trial types. In congruent (C) trials there was no interference. In stimulus incongruent (SI) trials there was only stimulus interference. In response incongruent (RI) trials there was stimulus interference and response interference. Stimulus interference and response interference were measured by a comparison of SI with C, and RI with SI trials, respectively. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured to study the temporal dynamics of these processes of interference.

Results

There was no behavioral evidence for stimulus interference in any of the groups, but in 6–7 year-old children ERPs in the SI condition in comparison with the C condition showed an occipital P1-reduction (80–140 ms) and a widely distributed amplitude enhancement of a negative component followed by an amplitude reduction of a positive component (400–560 ms). For response interference, all groups showed a comparable reaction time (RT) delay, but children made more errors than adults. ERPs in the RI condition in comparison with the SI condition showed an amplitude reduction of a positive component over lateral parietal (-occipital) sites in 10–12 year-olds and adults (300–540 ms), and a widely distributed amplitude enhancement of a positive component in all age groups (680–960 ms). The size of the enhancement correlated positively with the RT response interference effect.

Conclusion

Although processes of stimulus interference control as measured with the color-object Stroop task seem to reach mature levels relatively early in childhood (6–7 years), development of response interference control appears to continue into late adolescence as 10–12 year-olds were still more susceptible to errors of response interference than adults.     

Modulation interference in detection and discrimination of amplitude modulation

Two experiments were conducted to assess the effect of the rate of sinusoidal amplitude modulation (SAM) of a masker tone on detection of SAM of a probe tone (experiment 1) or on SAM-rate discrimination for the probe tone (experiment 2). When modulated at the same rate as the probe, the masker interfered with both the detection of probe modulation and the discrimination of the rate of probe modulation. The interference was obtained when the masker was either higher or lower in frequency than the probe (the probe and masker were separated by 2 oct). The amount of interference in detecting probe modulation (experiment 1) decreased as the common base rate of modulation was increased from 5 to 200 Hz. For rate discrimination (experiment 2), the amount of interference remained approximately the same for base rates of 2-40 Hz, the range over which rate discrimination was measured. In both experiments, the amount of interference was reduced when the masker was modulated at a different rate than the probe.     

Multiple-quantum magic-angle spinning NMR with cross-polarization: Spectral editing of high-resolution spectra of quadrupolar nuclei

An experiment is presented that combines the multiple-quantum magic-angle spinning (MQMAS) technique with cross-polarization (CP). As a preliminary test of this new method, we measured and compared the ²⁷Al 3QMAS and ¹⁹F → ²⁷A1 CP 3QMAS spectra of a fluorinated AlPO₄ aluminophosphate. Complete discrimination between the fluorinated and nonfluorinated Al sites was easily achieved, which demonstrates the usefulness of CP MQMAS for spectral editing. Future applications of this experiment will include other spin pairs and heteronuclear correlation NMR spectroscopy.     

Heritability of Stroop and flanker performance in 12-year old children

Background  

There is great interest in appropriate phenotypes that serve as indicator of genetically transmitted frontal (dys)function, such as ADHD. Here we investigate the ability to deal with response conflict, and we ask to what extent performance variation on response interference tasks is caused by genetic variation. We tested a large sample of 12-year old monozygotic and dizygotic twins on two well-known and closely related response interference tasks; the color Stroop task and the Eriksen flanker task. Using structural equation modelling we assessed the heritability of several performance indices derived from those tasks.     

The effect of localization on interference. II. Bearing on locality violation and the interpretation of quantum mechanics

In a two-channel interference experiment such as that considered in the preceding companion paper, a quantum may be localizable predominantly in one channel by a time-coincident experiment on a correlated quantum. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics then requires a coincidence intensity prediction having the same reduced interference between channels as if the probability amplitude in the other channel had been attenuated by a filter. The quantum mechanical treatment of correlated systems originated by von Neumann does predict this reduced interference, but avoids requiring a resulting direct locality violation by predicting that this reduced interference also occurs in a simple singles intensity observation. In contrast, de Broglie's locally causal interpretation of quantum mechanics requires that the experiment on the remote correlated system cannot change the amplitudes or phase relationship of coherent space-time wave propagating through the two channels, so that the full classical optics interference effect should be predicted for both singles and coincidence intensities.     

Backbone and side chain assignment strategies for multiply labeled membrane peptides and proteins in the solid state

We demonstrate that the SPECIFIC CP technique can be used to obtain heteronuclear correlation (HETCOR) spectra of peptide backbones with greater efficiency than conventional HETCOR methods. We show that similar design principles can be employed to achieve selective homonuclear polarization transfer mediated through dipolar or scalar couplings. Both approaches are demonstrated in a tripeptide with uniform 15N and 13C labeling, and with uniform 15N labeling and natural abundance 13C. In other applications, the high efficiency of the heteronuclear SPECIFIC CP transfer allows discrimination of single amide signals in the 248-residue membrane protein bacteriorhodopsin (bR). In particular, variations are detected in the ordering of the Ala81-Arg82 peptide bond among the photocycle intermediates of bR and SPECIFIC CP is used to correlate 15N and 13C signals from the three Val-Pro peptide bonds.     

Functional differences between vowel onsets and offsets in temporal perception of speech: local-change detection and speaking-rate discrimination

To provide a perceptual framework for the objective evaluation of durational rules in speech synthesis, two experiments were conducted to investigate the differences between vowel (V) onsets and V-offsets in their functions of marking the perceived temporal structure of speech. The first experiment measured the detectability of temporal modifications given in four-mora (CVCVCVCV) Japanese words. In the V-onset condition, the inter-onset intervals of vowels were uniformly changed (either expanded or reduced) while their inter-offset intervals were preserved. In the V-offset condition, this was reversed. These manipulations did not change the duration of the entire word. Each of the modified words was paired with its unmodified counterpart, and the pair was given to listeners, who were asked to rate the difference between the paired words. The results show that there were no significant differences in the listeners' abilities to detect the temporal modification between the V-onset and V-offset conditions. In the second experiment, the listeners were asked to estimate the differences they perceived in speaking rates for the same stimulus set as that of the first experiment. Interestingly, the results show a clear difference in the listeners' performance between the V-onset and V-offset conditions. Specifically, changing the V-onset intervals changed the perceived speaking rates, which showed a linear relation (r = -0.9) despite the fact that the duration of the entire word remained unchanged. In contrast, modifying the V-offset intervals produced no clear relation with the perceived speaking rates. The second experiment also showed that the listeners performed well in speaking rate discrimination (3.5%-5% in the change ratio). These results are discussed in relation to the differences in the listeners' temporal processing range (local or global) between the two experiments.     

Observation of CP Non-Invariance in ∑+→Pγ

We study the CP non-invariance in the Δs = 1 weak radiative decay ∑⁺→Pγ based on a few widely-discussed models. In the work, we study the isospin zero channel of the photon where unlike for ∑→Pπ, the CP non-invariance in ∑→Pγ is caused by the interference of the strong interaction to the weak-electromagnetic process through loops. We obtain a CP factor R = (α-α)/(α-α) of an order~10^-5 to 10^-4 which may be observed in the future.     

Across-frequency interference effects in fundamental frequency discrimination: questioning evidence for two pitch mechanisms

Carlyon and Shackleton [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 95, 3541-3554 (1994)] presented an influential study supporting the existence of two pitch mechanisms, one for complex tones containing resolved and one for complex tones containing only unresolved components. The current experiments provide an alternative explanation for their finding, namely the existence of across-frequency interference in fundamental frequency (F0) discrimination. Sensitivity (d') was measured for F0 discrimination between two sequentially presented 400 ms complex (target) tones containing only unresolved components. In experiment 1, the target was filtered between 1375 and 15,000 Hz, had a nominal F0 of 88 Hz, and was presented either alone or with an additional complex tone ("interferer"). The interferer was filtered between 125-625 Hz, and its F0 varied between 88 and 114.4 Hz across blocks. Sensitivity was significantly reduced in the presence of the interferer, and this effect decreased as its F0 was moved progressively further from that of the target. Experiment 2 showed that increasing the level of a synchronously gated lowpass noise that spectrally overlapped with the interferer reduced this "pitch discrimination interference (PDI)". In experiment 3A, the target was filtered between 3900 and 5400 Hz and had an F0 of either 88 or 250 Hz. It was presented either alone or with an interferer, filtered between 1375 and 1875 Hz with an F0 corresponding to the nominal target F0. PDI was larger in the presence of the resolved (250 Hz F0) than in the presence of the unresolved (88 Hz F0) interferer, presumably because the pitch of the former was more salient than that of the latter. Experiments 4A and 4B showed that PDI was reduced but not eliminated when the interferer was gated on 200 ms before and off 200 ms after the target, and that some PDI was observed with a continuous interferer. The current findings provide an alternative interpretation of a study supposedly providing strong evidence for the existence of two pitch mechanisms.     

用阴极射线管显示器研究辨色阈值Ⅰ:实验数据及人眼颜色视觉特性分析

为了研究人眼在辨色阈值水平上的颜色视觉特性,在阴极射线管(CRT)显示器上显示颜色刺激,采用交叉阶梯法进行心理物理实验,在CIE1976a*-b*平面上分别测得3名色觉正常的观察者在5个CIE基本颜色中心区域的辨色阈值。采用性能因子PF/3讨论观察者的测试精度,并以色度椭圆表示辨色阈值实验结果。通过对实验数据的详细处理和分析表明,在等明度的a*-b*平面上各色区及各颜色方向上人眼的辨色特性是各向异性的,即CIE1976a*-b*平面为非视觉均匀;人眼在5个CIE基本颜色中心区域上红-绿方向的视觉色差尺度均小于黄-蓝方向。本文的实验结果可为均匀颜色空间及其色差公式的改进和发展提供原始数据和参考依据。     

Reduced-state maximum-likelihood detection for OFDM systems with insufficient cyclic prefix

Dispersive channels deteriorate the bit error rate (BER) performance of orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) systems with insufficient cyclic prefix (CP). In this paper, we first analyze the intensity of the intersymbol interference (ISI) and intercarrier interference (ICI). For performance enhancement, an effective maximum-likelihood (ML) detection method, named reduced-state maximum-likelihood (RSML), is proposed to detect all target subcarriers parallelly. For each target subcarrier, the proposed RSML detects a few nearby subcarriers jointly, while the remaining subcarriers are directly determined by using pre-detection values. Simulations results show that the proposed RSML achieves a significant performance improvement in terms of BER compared to the existing detection methods and is robust to various channel models and CP lengths. In particular, for certain channel conditions with insufficient CP, the detection performance of RSML is even better than conventional detection with sufficient CP because additional frequency diversity gain is obtained from joint detection at the expense of complexity.     

Individual Cerebral Hemodynamic Response to Caffeine Was Related to Performance on a Newly Developed Stroop Color-Word Task

A modified Stroop color-word task has been developed to activate the prefrontal cortex as a cognitive task and it has been tried to clarify whether change in the cerebral hemodynamics after ingesting caffeine is associated with change in performance on the modified Stroop task in young male subjects. In this modified task, subjects were instructed to quickly select a colored disk on a computer screen in response to an instruction, i.e. “color” or “meaning”, presented simultaneously with one color word at each trial. The color of the presented color word was discordant with the meaning of the word. Relative changes in blood volume and oxygenation in the prefrontal association cortex were measured noninvasively using continuous-wave near-infrared spectroscopy. The results showed that caffeine ingestion decreased blood volume and oxygenated hemoglobin concentration in the brain during the modified Stroop task, and that the individual change in the latter was related to change in performance on the task following caffeine ingestion.     

Concentration polarization in translocation of DNA through nanopores and nanochannels

In this Letter we provide a theory to show that high-field electrokinetic translocation of DNA through nanopores or nanochannels causes large transient variations of the ionic concentrations in front and at the back of the DNA due to concentration polarization (CP). The CP causes strong local conductivity variations, which can successfully explain the nontrivial current transients and ionic distributions observed in molecular dynamics simulations of nanopore DNA translocations as well as the transient current dips and spikes measured for translocating hairpin DNA. Most importantly, as the future of sequencing of DNA by nanopore translocation will be based on time-varying electrical conductance, CP, must be considered in experimental design and interpretation--currently these studies are mostly based on the incomplete pore conductance models that ignore CP and transients in the electrical conductance.     

Spectral Based Estimation of Optical Path Difference of Interference Colors

A spectral intensity distribution of interference colors which is a function of optical path difference (OPD) is represented as a pattern vector on a subspace. A new algorithm to design a color scale on the subspace to estimate OPD values is proposed. In experiments, interference colors generated by a differential interference microscope (DIM) were examined. A subspace spanned by four orthogonal bases was constructed to make a color scale to determine OPD values in the range between 0 nm and 1000 nm. Estimated OPD values almost coincided with these expected. In an experiment on two-dimensional interference colors obtained by a spherical surface of a ballbearing observed by DIM, the resultant OPD distribution coincided well with that expected within a standard deviation of 12.8 nm.     

LED光源的波段间隔选择在彩色视觉中的应用

在彩色视觉的应用中,当检测目标背景拥有多种颜色时,检测目标总是难以从复杂的背景的中区分出来.选择合适的光源波段能够提高检测目标与背景的分辨力.该文首先利用四块具有不同反射率的标准板,将各表面的反射函数进行标定.然后应用偏最小二乘法选择合适的光源波段间隔.变量在投影方向的重要程度(VIP)得分作为波段间隔选择的挑选依据.VIP得分>1.0的波段视为有效的波段间隔.最终选取三个波段间隔作为视觉系统的光源照明,并进行了实验同时区分开实验图像的各表面并提高其分辨力.实验结果验证了该方法的有效性.     

Comparison of LMS-TEQ and DF-TEQ to reduce cyclic prefix length in direct detection optical OFDM system

This paper presents the comparison of using least mean square time-domain equalizer (LMS-TEQ) and decision feedback time-domain equalizer (DF-TEQ) to reduce cyclic prefix (CP) length for direct-detection of optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (O-OFDM) over 6960 km of single mode fiber (SMF). Both TEQs are used immediately after the channel. Numerical modeling results show that they can cancel the residual inter symbol interference (ISI) and inter carrier interference (ICI) caused by both the group velocity dispersion (GVD) and the CP length being shorter than the channel impulse response (CIR). Using these TEQs allow the reduction of CP length, and consequently leading to system performance improvement. On the other hand, each of TEQs adds complexity to the system. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to analyze and compare the performance of LMS-TEQ and DF-TEQ while considering different CP length and complexity.     

Interference from audio distracters during speechreading

Although many audio-visual speech experiments have focused on situations where the presence of an incongruent visual speech signal influences the perceived utterance heard by an observer, there are also documented examples of a related effect in which the presence of an incongruent audio speech signal influences the perceived utterance seen by an observer. This study examined the effects that different distracting audio signals had on performance in a color and number keyword speechreading task. When the distracting sound was noise, time-reversed speech, or continuous speech, it had no effect on speechreading. However, when the distracting audio signal consisted of speech that started at the same time as the visual stimulus, speechreading performance was substantially degraded. This degradation did not depend on the semantic similarity between the target and masker speech, but it was substantially reduced when the onset of the audio speech was shifted relative to that of the visual stimulus. Overall, these results suggest that visual speech perception is impaired by the presence of a simultaneous mismatched audio speech signal, but that other types of audio distracters have little effect on speechreading performance.     

颜色视觉匹配中明度阈值的评价

为了对颜色视觉匹配中的明度阈值特性进行评价,采用在阴极射线管显示器上获得的颜色刺激,在5个不同明度的中性色背景下,标准刺激的明度L*从5到95以5个CIELAB单位为变化步长,共对19个不同明度的中性标准颜色进行视觉匹配实验。通过对实验结果的处理和分析,验证了关于颜色刺激视觉辨别明度阈值与背景明度之间相关性的韦伯法则和crispening效应,同时利用颜色视觉匹配数据对基于CIELAB的相关色差公式进行了评价和比较,CIEDE2000具有最好的明度差预测性能,CMC次之,CIELAB和CIE94最差。     

CP MAS 13C spectral editing and relative quantitation of a soil sample

A hydrofluoric acid (HF)-treated soil sample was studied by 13C NMR spectroscopy. Cross polarization (CP) Magic Angle Spinning (MAS) 13C spectral editing and relative CP peak quantitation, obtained through variable-contact-time experiments, were used to aid the interpretation of the spectrum. The combination of these two types of experiment allowed to obtain a higher degree of detail on the composition of the sample with respect to a standard CP MAS experiment.     

基于人眼视觉和残差补偿的光谱降维模型的研究

传统主成分(PCA)光谱降维方法利用数学的方法,保证降维后的重构光谱与原光谱在形状上尽可能相似, 但是传统PCA降维过程中无差别的对待每一个波段的光谱数据,而人眼视觉对不同波段的光谱敏感程度不同,会造成有时候虽然光谱误差较小,但是人眼看上去色差较大的情况。在保证光谱误差的同时,为了能够有效的减少源光谱与重构光谱的色度误差,提出了两种基于人眼视觉的加权函数对传统PCA降维方法进行优化,并利用残差光谱对模型进行补偿。实验过程以Munsell色卡作为训练样本,Munsell色卡和多光谱图像“young girl”作为测试样本,然后利用本文提出的加权函数进行PCA降维并重构,并与相关文献提出的方法进行了对比。实验结果表明, 提出的两种加权算法,与其他算法相比,无论是色度精度还是在变光源的稳定性方面,都有显著地提高。