Light-adapted spectral sensitivity of the goldfish was measured using the dorsal light reaction-the reflexive tendency of fish to tilt their dorsal surface toward bright light. Subjects were placed between two 150” extended monochromatic fields. one of which was always 532nm. The angle of tilt toward or away from the 532nm light was measured. and the relative intensities of the fields were adju...

Talkers modify the way they speak in the presence of noise. As well as increases in voice level and fundamental frequency (F0), a flattening of spectral tilt is observed. The resulting ‘‘Lombard speech” is typically more intelligible than speech produced in quiet, even when level differences are removed. What is the cause of the enhanced intelligibility of Lombard speech? The current study expl...

Autonomic nervous system control in subjects with vasovagal syncope is controversial. In the present study, we used short-term spectral analysis to evaluate autonomic control in subjects with recurrent vasovagal syncope. We assessed the ability of spectral indices of HR (heart rate) variability to predict tilt-test responses. A series of 47 outpatients with recurrent vasovagal syncope and with ...

Two symbolic indexes, the percentage of sequences characterized by three heart periods with no significant variations (0V%) and that with two significant unlike variations (2UV%), have been found to reflect changes in sympathetic and vagal modulations, respectively. We tested the hypothesis that symbolic indexes may track the gradual shift of the cardiac autonomic modulation during an increment...

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between measurements of lumbar lordosis, pelvic tilt, and abdominal muscle performance during normal standing. In addition, the reliability of the measurements used in this study was examined. Measurements of lumbar lordosis, pelvic tilt, and abdominal muscle performance were taken of 31 healthy adults aged 20 to 33 years. Each measurem...

Spectral analysis considers the problem of determining (the art of recovering) the spectral content (i.e., the distribution of power over frequency) of a stationary time series from a finite set of measurements, by means of either nonparametric or parametric techniques. This paper introduces the spectral analysis problem, motivates the definition of power spectral density functions, and reviews...

The acoustic properties of word stress have been explored in a number of studies. However, there is little research on German word stress, and even less on its realization in spontaneous speech. This paper tests whether parameters that have been found to implement word stress in mostly laboratory speech are also employed in a corpus of German spontaneous speech. Specifically, we consider spectr...

Research on the acoustic characteristics of Infant Directed Speech (IDS) in North American English indicates that it is generally higher-pitched than Adult (ADS) and has unique prosodic characteristics, which commonly found across many spoken languages. However, very little research addressed another important aspect prosody: voice quality. In current study, 25 English-speaking mothers from Can...