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This study examined the acoustic and perceptual voice characteristics of patients with Parkinson's disease according to disease severity. The perceptual and acoustic voice characteristics of 30 patients with early stage PD and 30 patients with later stage PD were compared with data from 30 normal control subjects. Voice recordings consisted of prolongation of the vowel /a/, scale singing, and a 1-min monologue. In comparison with controls and previously published normative data, both early and later stage PD patients' voices were characterized perceptually by limited pitch and loudness variability, breathiness, harshness and reduced loudness. High modal pitch levels also characterized the voices of males in both early and later stages of PD. Acoustically, the voices of both groups of PD patients demonstrated lower mean intensity levels and reduced maximum phonational frequency ranges in comparison with normative data. Although less clear, the present data also suggested that the PD patients' voices were characterized by excess jitter, a high-speaking fundamental frequency for males and a reduced fundamental frequency variability for females. While several of these voice features did not appear to deteriorate with disease progression (i.e. harshness, high modal pitch and speaking fundamental frequency in males, fundamental frequency variability in females, low intensity and jitter), breathiness, monopitch and monoloudness, low loudness and reduced maximum phonational frequency range were all worse in the later stages of PD. Tremor was the sole voice feature which was associated only with later stage PD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender disparity persists in the United States; women are still paid less than men and are also subject to discrimination in the workplace based on the fact that they may become mothers. Further, there is evidence to indicate that single mothers are judged more harshly than their married mother counterparts and single fathers. As a form of amelioration, some women self medicate with alcohol and according to the CDC), alcohol use disorder (AUD) is on the rise for women. Although there is research on gender disparity, the motherhood penalty, and AUD, there are no experiments testing socio-cognitive judgments on those combined factors and specifically examining what we term "the single motherhood penalty". Therefore, in two experiments using between-participants designs, participants rated a picture of a person (female or male) paired with a brief description where marital status (single or married) and type of ailment (alcohol or physical) was manipulated. In Experiment 1, a passive AUD manipulation did not show a clear single motherhood penalty. In Experiment 2, the results of an active AUD manipulation supported the predicted single motherhood penalty (Experiment 2a), but did not show an analogous single fatherhood penalty (Experiment 2 b). These findings are the first to offer empirical evidence that socio-cognitive judgments might perpetuate the interplay of the single motherhood penalty and AUD.

Background: Transgender healthcare is a rapidly evolving interdisciplinary field. In the last decade, there has been an unprecedented increase in the number and visibility of transgender and gender diverse (TGD) people seeking support and gender-affirming medical treatment in parallel with a significant rise in the scientific literature in this area. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) is an international, multidisciplinary, professional association whose mission is to promote evidence-based care, education, research, public policy, and respect in transgender health. One of the main functions of WPATH is to promote the highest standards of health care for TGD people through the Standards of Care (SOC). The SOC was initially developed in 1979 and the last version (SOC-7) was published in 2012. In view of the increasing scientific evidence, WPATH commissioned a new version of the Standards of Care, the SOC-8. Aim: The overall goal of SOC-8 is to provide health care professionals (HCPs) with clinical guidance to assist TGD people in accessing safe and effective pathways to achieving lasting personal comfort with their gendered selves with the aim of optimizing their overall physical health, psychological well-being, and self-fulfillment. Methods: The SOC-8 is based on the best available science and expert professional consensus in transgender health. International professionals and stakeholders were selected to serve on the SOC-8 committee. Recommendation statements were developed based on data derived from independent systematic literature reviews, where available, background reviews and expert opinions. Grading of recommendations was based on the available evidence supporting interventions, a discussion of risks and harms, as well as the feasibility and acceptability within different contexts and country settings. Results: A total of 18 chapters were developed as part of the SOC-8. They contain recommendations for health care professionals who provide care and treatment for TGD people. Each of the recommendations is followed by explanatory text with relevant references. General areas related to transgender health are covered in the chapters Terminology, Global Applicability, Population Estimates, and Education. The chapters developed for the diverse population of TGD people include Assessment of Adults, Adolescents, Children, Nonbinary, Eunuchs, and Intersex Individuals, and people living in Institutional Environments. Finally, the chapters related to gender-affirming treatment are Hormone Therapy, Surgery and Postoperative Care, Voice and Communication, Primary Care, Reproductive Health, Sexual Health, and Mental Health. Conclusions: The SOC-8 guidelines are intended to be flexible to meet the diverse health care needs of TGD people globally. While adaptable, they offer standards for promoting optimal health care and guidance for the treatment of people experiencing gender incongruence. As in all previous versions of the SOC, the criteria set forth in this document for gender-affirming medical interventions are clinical guidelines; individual health care professionals and programs may modify these in consultation with the TGD person., Competing Interests: Conflict of interests were reviewed as part of the selection process for committee members and at the end of the process before publication. No conflicts of interest were deemed significant or consequential., (© 2022 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.)

Background: Work-system participation and factors are associated with occupational vocal health for vocally reliant workers, such as sports coaches. However, there is limited use of systems approaches and worker collaboration to address occupational voice., Objective: The current research aimed to cooperatively consider coaches' vocally reliant systems participation, including addressing vocal ergonomic factors that can create barriers for occupational vocal health and voice use., Methods: Collaborative action inquiries explored vocal ergonomics with coaches (n = 24) from nine professional basketball teams. Across three basketball seasons, coaches and a subject matter expert identified what influenced coaches' voices and trialed approaches to optimize vocally reliant coaching participation. Nine action inquiry methods were used, including search conferences, ergonomic approaches to enhance systems participation, and focus groups. Multi-level analyses were also undertaken., Results: Participants cooperatively generated, implemented, and evaluated different strategies. A cumulative total of 57 strategies were explored within teams (team mean = 6.33, SD = 3, range = 4-14). Cross-case analysis identified 25 different strategy types. Overall, participants appraised 31.58% (18/57) strategies as supportive (i.e., enhanced facilitators for voice), 61.40% (35/57) strategies as somewhat supportive (i.e., some enhanced facilitators and some ongoing barriers), and 7.02% (4/57) strategies as unsupportive (i.e., pervasive ongoing barriers not mitigated by strategies). Further, factors across coaches' work-systems continued to influence coaches' voices in dynamic and complex ways., Conclusions: Collaboration with coaches enriched vocal ergonomic approaches by providing novel, context-anchored insights. Collaboration should form 'part' of broader mechanisms to support coaches' voice use and vocal health at work.

Background: Coaches critically rely on voice for occupational functioning, which has associated risks to vocal health. However, vocal occupational health and safety (OHS) and vocal ergonomics are not typically considered for, by, or with coaches., Objective: This study piloted a participatory approach to vocal ergonomics, aiming to collaboratively (i) understand coaches' vocally reliant occupational participation, and (ii) consider vocal ergonomic factors., Methods: This research was undertaken at an international tournament for floorball (also known as 'Innebandy', 'Salibandy', or 'Unihockey'). Three national coaches (n = 3) and the lead researcher undertook cooperative action inquiry. This piloted a participatory vocal ergonomics programme. Action inquiry methods included fieldnotes, interviews, observations, a workshop, ergonomics approaches, and a focus group. Multi-level analyses supported the findings, including categorical aggregation, direct interpretation, and reflexive thematic analysis., Results: Participants identified vocal ergonomic factors present at the tournament; including personal, activity, physical environmental, and organisational factors. Participants developed four vocal ergonomic approaches responsive to factors. These were: (1) player consultation, (2) ongoing feedback discussions, (3) movement and postural change, and (4) specific task adaptation. Approaches 1-2 directly supported coaches' voices. Coaches posited limitations to other strategies, but made recommendations for future use. Coaches also reflected that this collaboration provided actionable voice insights and opportunities to address vocal ergonomics. They advocated for extended engagement with coaches, increased focus on vocal health, and inclusion of early career coaches in future programmes., Conclusions: These findings support engagement of coaches, and other vocally reliant workers, in addressing voice use and vocal health at work.

Objectives: The Transsexual Voice Questionnaire (TVQ MtF ) is a population-specific self-report tool designed to capture the perceptions of male-to-female transsexual women (MtF women) regarding their vocal functioning and the voice-related impact on their everyday life. The aim of this study was to further the psychometric evaluation of the TVQ MtF by examining its construct validity and confirming its reliability., Study Design: This is a prospective validity and reliability study., Methods: One hundred fifty-one MtF women provided data for principal components analysis with oblimin rotation. Data from 133 of these participants were also analyzed to evaluate the internal consistency of the TVQ MtF ., Results: Principal components analysis identified a two-factor structure. The largest component (accounting for 51.99% of the variance) captured individuals' perceptions of their vocal functioning and included items related to the link between voice and gender identity. This component was labeled vocal functioning. The second component (5.82% of the variance) contained items that related to the impact of voice on the individual's participation in everyday life and was labeled social participation. Internal consistency was high (Cronbach's α = .97)., Conclusions: The findings support the construct validity of the TVQ MtF . Additionally, the high internal consistency of the TVQ MtF found in the current study confirms that the content of the TVQ MtF reliably measures the self-perceptions of MtF women regarding their voice. The current findings also support the clinical utility of the TVQ MtF providing a means of organizing TVQ MtF responses to inform the voice training process., (Crown Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) often experience significant anxiety. A promising approach to anxiety intervention has emerged from cognitive studies of attention bias to threat. To investigate the utility of this intervention in WS, this study examined attention bias to happy and angry faces in individuals with WS (N = 46). Results showed a significant difference in attention bias patterns as a function of IQ and anxiety. Individuals with higher IQ or higher anxiety showed a significant bias toward angry, but not happy faces, whereas individuals with lower IQ or lower anxiety showed the opposite pattern. These results suggest that attention bias interventions to modify a threat bias may be most effectively targeted to anxious individuals with WS with relatively high IQ.

Recent evidence suggests that proactive interference (PI) does not hurt event-based prospective memory (ProM) the way it does retrospective memory (RetroM) (Oates, Peynircioglu, & Bates, 2015). We investigated this apparent resistance further. Introduction of a distractor task to ensure we were testing ProM rather than vigilance in Experiment 1 and tripling the number of lists to provide more opportunity for PI buildup in Experiment 2 still did not produce performance decrements. However, when the ProM task was combined with a RetroM task in Experiment 3, a comparable buildup and release was observed also in the ProM task. It appears that event based ProM is indeed somewhat resistant to PI, but this resistance can break down when the ProM task comprises the same stimuli as in an embedded RetroM task. We discuss the results using the ideas of cue overload and distinctiveness as well as shared attentional and working memory resources.

Objective: This study determined the prevalence and nature of voice problems in New Zealand (NZ) teachers using a national self-report questionnaire., Study Design: Epidemiological cross-sectional survey., Methods: Participants were 1879 primary and secondary teachers (72.5% females). Three prevalence timeframes were estimated. Severity of voice problems, recovery time, days away from work, symptoms, health assistance, and voice education were also investigated., Results: Prevalence of self-reported vocal problems was 33.2% during their teaching career, 24.7% over the teaching year, and 13.2% on the day of the survey. Primary teachers (P<0.001; odds ratio [OR]=1.74; confidence interval [CI]=1.33-2.40), females (P=0.008; OR=1.63; CI=1.13-2.37), and those aged 51-60 years (P=0.010; OR=1.45; CI=1.11-3.00) were more likely to report problems. Among teachers reporting voice problems during the year, 47% were moderate or severe; for 30%, voice recovery took more than 1 week. Approximately 28% stayed away from work 1-3 days owing to a vocal problem and 9% for more than 3 days. Women reported longer recovery times and more days away. Symptoms associated with voice problems (P<0.001) were voice quality alteration (OR=4.35; CI=3.40-5.57), vocal effort (OR=1.15; CI=0.96-1.37), voice breaks (OR=1.55; CI=1.30-1.84), voice projection difficulty (OR=1.25; CI=1.04-1.50), and throat discomfort (OR=1.22; CI=1.02-1.47). Of the teachers reporting voice problems, only 22.5% consulted a health practitioner. Only 38% of the teachers with chronic voice problems visited an otolaryngologist. Higher hours of voice training/education were associated with fewer self-reported voice problems., Conclusions: Voice problems are of concern for NZ teachers, as has been reported for teachers in other countries. There is still limited awareness among teachers about vocal health, potential risks, and specialized health services for voice problems., (Copyright © 2015 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objective: To explore the occupational voice use and vocal health of elite football coaches., Study Design: This pilot study explored coaches' voice use patterns and vocal demands across workplace environments. Each coach's experiences of voice symptoms and voice problems were also investigated., Methods: Twelve Australian professional football coaches participated in a mixed-methods data collection approach. Data were collected through acoustic voice measurement (Ambulatory Phonation Monitor), semistructured interviews, and a voice symptom questionnaire (Voice Capabilities Questionnaire)., Results: Acoustic measures suggested heavy vocal loads for coaches during player training. All participants reported experiencing voice symptoms. They also suggested that the structure of their working week, workplace tasks, and vocal demands impacted on their voices. Despite this, participants reported little previous reflection or awareness of what impacted on their voices. Coaches typically did not consider how to support their voices during daily work and discussed experiencing voice symptoms as an inevitable part of their jobs., Conclusions: This study demonstrates that occupational vocal demands may negatively impact on sports coaches' vocal health. This is particularly important, considering coaches' heavy vocal loads across coaching tasks and reported negative occupational vocal health experience. Furthermore, coaches' limited insight into voice use and vocal health management may impact on their vocal performance and health. Given the exploratory nature of this study, further research into coaches' occupational vocal health is warranted., (Copyright © 2015 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Purpose of Review: This review addresses speech therapy interventions for older adults experiencing voice impairments. The prevalence, impact, and nature of voice impairments in older people are outlined. Intervention methods and their effectiveness are discussed, with particular focus on behavioral treatments for presbyphonia. The strength of current evidence is discussed and recommendations for future research are presented., Recent Findings: There has been a substantial increase in the number of older people seeking voice management over the last 10-20 years. Reduced vocal effectiveness in older people is likely to be multifactorial and associated with normal physiological aging, maladaptive responses to vocal aging, and medical and psychosocial conditions that are common in older age. Although several authors have claimed that behavioral intervention for presbyphonia is effective, few studies were reported until 2008. Since then, 10 studies have been published as to the effectiveness of behavioral interventions for age-related dysphonia. Voice therapy techniques evaluated include vocal function exercises, phonation resistance training exercise, Lessac-Madsen resonant voice therapy, Lee Silverman voice treatment, neuromuscular electrical stimulation, semi-occluded vocal tract, and flow phonation. Findings suggest that behavioral interventions for presbyphonia have the potential to mitigate effects of vocal aging, but the overall evidence base is inadequate to allow definitive conclusions., Summary: Because vocal effectiveness diminishes as people age and because diminished vocal capabilities are associated with negative impacts, the importance of establishing whether behavioral interventions are effective is now acknowledged. Although the number of studies on speech therapy interventions has increased, the body of evidence is limited and further research is required.

Objectives: To determine whether emotional expression, alexithymia, illness behavior, and coping strategies differed between women with muscle tension voice disorder (MTVD) and those without voice disorder and between women with and without mucosal pathology of the vocal folds, and to explore possible links between psychosocial constructs and clinical features in women with MTVD., Study Design and Method: A within-subjects design matched 20 women with MTVD and 20 women without voice disorder on validated self-report measures of the psychosocial constructs. The effect of mucosal pathology was assessed using between-groups analyses. Correlations assessed relationships between psychosocial constructs and clinical features., Results: Comparisons between women with MTVD and those without voice disorder showed an elevated sense of illness identity and greater belief in the presence of somatic illness in women with MTVD. There was a trend toward women with MTVD showing lower levels of emotional awareness. Women without vocal fold pathology reported lower levels of emotional awareness than those with pathology, whereas women with pathology reported greater use of a mixed pattern of adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies than those with no pathology. Low vocal load was associated with higher scores on alexithymia, higher numbers of vocal symptoms were associated with the use of adaptive coping, and greater impact of symptoms was associated with higher levels of emotional awareness and greater belief in the presence of somatic illness., Conclusions: These findings encourage further investigation of relationships between emotional awareness, illness behavior, and coping in women with functional voice disorders., (Copyright © 2014 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

We examined the effects of the source of a prospective memory task (provided or generated) and the type of cue (specific or general) triggering that task in everyday settings. Participants were asked to complete both generated and experimenter-provided tasks and to send a text message when each task was completed. The cue/context for the to-be-completed tasks was either a specific time or a general deadline (time-based cue), and the cue/context for the texting task was the completion of the task itself (activity-based cue). Although generated tasks were completed more often, generated cues/contexts were no more effective than provided ones in triggering the intention. Furthermore, generated tasks were completed more often when the cue/context comprised a specific time, whereas provided tasks were completed more often when the cue/context comprised a general deadline. However, texting was unaffected by the source of the cue/context. Finally, emotion modulated the effects. Results are discussed within a process-driven framework.

Objective: This study reports on the preliminary psychometric evaluation of the Transsexual Voice Questionnaire for Male-to-Female Transsexuals (MtF)-TVQ(MtF), a tool designed to measure the perceptions of MtF transsexuals regarding their voice. The TVQ(MtF) evolved from an extensive review of the existing Transgender Self-evaluation Questionnaire (TSEQ)., Study Design: This study was conducted in two phases. In phase I, the TSEQ was reviewed. In phase II, classical test theory was applied to examine two psychometric properties (internal consistency and test-retest reliability) of the TVQ(MtF)., Method: In phase I, two speech pathologists and two MtF individuals reviewed the TSEQ, and a comparison was made with the results of a thematic analysis of 137 voice-related extracts from the transcripts of in-depth interviews with 14 MtF individuals. In phase II, 29 Australian and six Canadian MtF transsexuals completed the new tool, the TVQ(MtF) twice with an interim period of 4-6 weeks to enable psychometric evaluation., Results: Phase I led to substantial changes to the content and structure of the original measure, the TSEQ, and the subsequent development of the TVQ(MtF). In phase II, internal consistency of the TVQ(MtF) was found to be high (time 1 Cronbach's α=.964; time 2 α=.974). Excellent test-retest reliability was demonstrated (intraclass correlation coefficient=0.979; 95% confidence interval=0.968-0.988)., Conclusions: This study provides psychometric evidence of the reliability of the TVQ(MtF). The MtF participants in this study reported a wide range of vocal functioning and voice-related difficulties. Voice pitch was reported as the most problematic aspect of vocal functioning, and psychosocial issues were the most frequently reported voice-related impacts., (Copyright © 2013 The Voice Foundation. Published by Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: The quality of the parent-child relationship has an important effect on a wide range of child outcomes. The evaluation of interventions to promote healthy parenting and family relationships is dependent on outcome measures which can quantify the quality of parent-child relationships. Between the Mothers' Object Relations - Short Form (MORS-SF) scale for babies and the Child-parent Relationship Scale (C-PRS) there is an age gap where no validated scales are available. We report the development and testing of an adaptation of the MORS-SF; the MORS (Child) scale and its use in children from the age of 2 years to 4 years. This scale aims to capture the nature of the parent-child relationship in a form which is short enough to be used in population surveys and intervention evaluations., Methods: Construct and criterion validity, item salience and internal consistency were assessed in a sample of 166 parents of children aged 2-4 years old and compared with that of the C-PRS. The performance of the MORS (Child) as part of a composite measure with the HOME inventory was compared with that of the C-PRS using data collected in a randomised controlled trial and the national evaluation of Sure Start., Results: MORS (Child) performed well in children aged 2-4 with high construct and criterion validity, item salience and internal consistency. One item in the C-PRS failed to load on either subscale and parents found this scale slightly more difficult to complete than the MORS (Child). The two measures performed very similarly in a factor analysis with the HOME inventory producing almost identical loadings., Conclusions: Adapting the MORS-SF for children aged 2-4 years old produces a scale to assess parent-child relationships that is easy to use and outperforms the more commonly used C-PRS in several respects.

In two experiments, we provided support for the hypothesis that stimuli with preexisting memory representations (e.g., famous faces) are easier to associate to their encoding context than are stimuli that lack long-term memory representations (e.g., unknown faces). Subjects viewed faces superimposed on different backgrounds (e.g., the Eiffel Tower). Face recognition on a surprise memory test was better when the encoding background was reinstated than when it was swapped with a different background; however, the reinstatement advantage was modulated by how many faces had been seen with a given background, and reinstatement did not improve recognition for unknown faces. The follow-up experiment added a drug intervention that inhibited the ability to form new associations. Context reinstatement did not improve recognition for famous or unknown faces under the influence of the drug. The results suggest that it is easier to associate context to faces that have a preexisting long-term memory representation than to faces that do not.

Introduction: The Mothers' Object Relations Scale (MORS) was developed by John M. Oates (Open University, Milton Keynes, UK) in the late 1990s. The MORS is an appropriate instrument for gathering parental perceptions about the child and the parent-infant relationship. The questionnaire and its short form were improved further and validated in British and Hungarian samples in the beginning of the 2000s and the questionnaire was used in several applied studies in the UK where its predictive validity was further confirmed., Methods: The development and validation phases were based on small samples. The diverse social-demographic characteristics of the For Healthy Offspring project, allowed for further testing the reliability and validity of the Hungarian short-form in a large (n=1164) sample., Results: High internal consistency was found in the original and the imputed data obtained from parents of 0-3-year old children for both of H-MORS-SF dimensions: Invasion and Warmth. The scales had interpretable and systematic cross-correlations with measures of infant temperament (IBQ-R, ECBQ) and mental state (DS1K) of both parents. These results confirm and exceed the previous results based on small samples., Conclusion: Given the convincing psychometric indicators and its fast and simple usage, the H-MORS-SF can be considered as an effective preventive screening test for monitoring the developing parent-infant relationship, therefore we suggest its use for professionals working in developmental psychology, child health and social fields.

Background: Many measures of infants' early cognitive development, including the BSID-II (The Bayley Scales of Infant Development), mix together test items that assess a number of different developmental domains including language, attention, motor functioning and social abilities, and some items contribute to the assessment of more than one domain. Consequently, the scales may lead to under- or over-estimates of cognitive abilities in some clinical samples and may not be the best measure to use for matching purposes., Method: To address this issue we created a modified form of the BSID-II (the BSID-M) to provide a 'purer' assessment of the general cognitive capacities in infants with Down syndrome (DS) from 6 to 18 months of age. We excluded a number of items that implicated language, motor, attentional and social functioning from the original measure. This modified form was administered to 17 infants with Down syndrome when 6, 12 and 18 months old and to 41 typically developing infants at 4, 7 and 10 months old., Results: The results suggested that the modified form continued to provide a meaningful and stable measure of cognitive functioning and revealed that DS infants may score marginally higher in terms of general cognitive abilities when using this modified form than they might when using the standard BSID-II scales., Conclusions: This modified form may be useful for researchers who need a 'purer' measure with which to match infants with DS and other infants with intellectual disabilities on cognitive functioning.

In a double-blind, placebo-controlled experiment that used midazolam, a benzodiazepine that creates temporary amnesia, we compared acquisition and retention of paired associates of different types. Some word pairs were studied before the injection of saline or midazolam, and two lists of word pairs were studied after the injection. Critical comparisons involved retention of pairs that were practiced on all three lists, pairs studied on only one list, and pairs that involved recombining cue and response terms from one list to the next, as a function of drug condition. Previous research with benzodiazepines had found retrograde facilitation for material acquired prior to injection, compared with the control condition. One explanation for this facilitation is that the anterograde amnesia produced by the benzodiazepine frees up the hippocampus to better consolidate previously learned material (Wixted, 2004, 2005). We accounted for a rich data set using a simple computational model that incorporated interference effects (cue overload) at retrieval for both general (experimental context) interference and specific (stimulus term) interference without the need to postulate a role for consolidation. The computational model as an Excel spreadsheet may be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive.

Rationale: Although there have been many studies examining the effects of benzodiazepines on memory performance, their effects on working memory are equivocal and little is known about whether they affect the efficacy of practice of already learned material., Objectives: The objectives in two experiments were to examine (a) whether midazolam impairs performance on a working memory task designed to minimize mnemonic strategies such as rehearsal or chunking of information to be recalled and (b) the effect of midazolam on repeated practice of paired associates that were learned before drug administration., Materials and Methods: Both experiments involved subcutaneous administration of 0.03 mg of saline or midazolam per kilogram of bodyweight in within-subject, placebo-controlled designs, involving 23 subjects in (a) and 31 in (b)., Results: The drug had no effect on the ability to recall the digits in serial order even though the encoding task prevented the digits from being rehearsed or maintained in an articulatory buffer. Paired associates that were learned before the injection showed a benefit of subsequent practice under saline but not under midazolam., Conclusions: The results suggest that (a) midazolam does not affect the formation of new associations in short-term memory provided that the presentation rate is not too fast to form these associations when sedated, despite the evidence that the drug blocks long-term memory (LTM) retention of associations; and (b) the potential for over-learning with practice of learned associations in LTM is adversely affected by midazolam such that repeated exposures do not strengthen new learning.

Midazolam is a drug that creates temporary anterograde amnesia. In a within-subjects, double-blind experiment, participants studied a list of stimuli after receiving an injection of midazolam in one session and after receiving saline in another session. The lists consisted of three types of stimuli: words, photographs, and abstract pictures. Recognition memory was tested at the end of each session. Memory was reliably poorer in the midazolam condition than the saline condition, but this amnesic effect was significantly smaller for pictorial stimuli than for words and almost nonexistent for abstract pictures. We argue that the less familiar the stimulus, the less likely it is to be associated with an experimental context. These data bolster our claim that unitization increases the chances of episodic binding and that drug-induced amnesia prevents episodic binding regardless of unitization.

Although considerable progress has been made in the development of acoustic and physiological measures of operatic singing voice, there is still no widely accepted objective tool for the evaluation of its multidimensional features. Auditory-perceptual evaluation, therefore, remains an important evaluation method for singing pedagogues, voice scientists, and clinicians who work with opera singers. Few investigators, however, have attempted to develop standard auditory-perceptual tools for evaluation of the operatic voice. This study aimed to pilot test a new auditory-perceptual rating instrument for operatic singing voice. Nine expert teachers of operatic singing used the instrument to rate the singing voices of 21 professional opera chorus artists from a national opera company. The findings showed that the instrument has good face validity, that it can be legitimately treated as a psychometrically sound scale, and that raters can use the scale consistently, both between and within judges. This new instrument, therefore, has the potential to allow opera singers, their teachers, voice care clinicians, and researchers to evaluate the important auditory-perceptual features of operatic voice quality.

Infants and young children with Down syndrome can be engaging and affectionate. It seems that in the early months of life their personal relations may be relatively 'spared' the effects of limitations in their capacities for information-processing. Yet how far is this the case as development proceeds? In this paper we discuss some ways in which social and cognitive development interact and mutually influence one another over the first year or so of life, and present preliminary findings from a longitudinal study of infants with and without Down syndrome. The evidence suggests that the development of 'triadic' (person-person-world) social interactions may be affected by limited information-processing capacities in infants with Down syndrome, through a complex socially-mediated developmental trajectory.

Voice disorders are thought to be one of the major occupational hazards of school teaching. The resulting symptoms can affect teachers' ability to function in the classroom and prevent them from developing effective working relationships with other staff and students. Sick leave, speech pathology management, and surgical intervention can be costly. Severe voice problems can also result in a teacher permanently leaving the classroom. Despite the significant implications of voice disorders for teachers, this review of published research demonstrates that findings concerning the prevalence of voice problems in teachers and the causes and contributing factors of those voice problems are inconclusive. Similarly, previous research on the efficacy of prevention programs and treatment of voice problems in teachers provide few firm conclusions. Further research based on sound empirical data is needed, as many past studies have relied on anecdotal or self-report data. More operational definitions of what constitutes a voice disorder and the associated contributing factors should be adopted, along with the use of more instrumental measures and careful attention to methodology and appropriate statistical analyses. Only then will we have a sound basis for the development of effective prevention and education programs for teachers.

This study investigated changes in maximum phonation time and acoustic and perceptual measures of voice following topical anesthesia and laryngeal endoscopy with the flexible endoscope. Forty-four females, aged 18-33 years and with normal voices, performed four vocal tasks: (a) 3-second /i/ prolongation, (b) maximum phonation time on /i/, (c) stepwise scale-singing, and (d) reading a standard passage. Subjects performed these tasks prior to anesthesia, after anesthesia, and again during laryngeal endoscopy. Voice samples were analyzed forjitter, shimmer, harmonic-to-noise ratio, speaking fundamental frequency, maximum phonational frequency range, maximum phonation time, harshness, and breathiness. Results demonstrated significant reductions in maximum phonational frequency range following anesthesia and, during laryngeal endoscopy, reductions in maximum phonation time and increases in speaking fundamental frequency, minimum fundamental frequency on scale-singing, and breathiness. Clinicians using laryngeal endoscopy for evaluation and management of vocal dysfunction should, therefore, consider the possible effects of these procedures on vocal functioning.

In this article the results of an experimental study into the user acceptance of various window handle heights and opening forces are given. The apparatus and method used are detailed with the subject sample, and the results and design implications are discussed.