Non-matching Pairs Research Articles

Automated Combined Kinetic and Static Perimetry

To create a fully automated, combined perimetry program consisting of a static examination and a kinetic examination, and to compare the results of this test with standard static and kinetic visual fields (VFs). Fifty-six patients (74 eyes) undergoing neuro-ophthalmic or glaucoma evaluation who had standard static or kinetic perimetry examinations underwent the combined perimetry test. This automated, combined test, performed on the Octopus 101 perimeter, consisted of a static tendency-oriented perimetry examination and a preprogrammed kinetic examination. Three masked physician reviewers independently classified all of the VFs. The VF pairs were considered a match if the consensus descriptions of the standard and combined VFs matched. Thirty-seven eyes underwent evaluation for neuro-ophthalmic disease (comparison standard test, 20 static and 17 kinetic) and 37 for glaucoma (comparison standard test, 17 static and 20 kinetic). The VP pairs matched in 32 eyes (86%) in the neuro-ophthalmic group and 28 (76%) in the glaucoma group. On inspection by a fourth reviewer, many of the nonmatching VF pairs were those for which a consensus was not reached, but still conveyed similar information. Two glaucomatous eyes demonstrated central scotomata not delineated by the combined examination findings. Two subtle nasal steps were detected solely by the combined examination. The combined test ranged in time from 6 to 12 minutes per eye. The Octopus 101 perimeter can be used to create an automated test that combines the advantages of static and kinetic perimetry and produces equivalent results while not requiring examiner expertise.

Gamma-band activity dissociates between matching and nonmatching stimulus pairs in an auditory delayed matching-to-sample task

Electro- and magnetoencephalography studies have suggested that increased gamma-band activity (GBA) is a correlate of activated neural stimulus representations. In this study, a delayed matching-to-sample paradigm for auditory spatial information was employed to investigate the role of magnetoencephalographic gamma-band activity in the differentiation between matching and nonmatching stimulus pairs. Twelve subjects made same–different judgments about the lateralization angle of pairs of filtered noise stimuli (S1 and S2) presented with 0.8-s delays. One half of the subjects had to respond to matching stimulus pairs, the other half to nonmatching stimulus pairs. Cortical oscillatory activity in the memory task was compared to a control task requiring the detection of background noise intensity changes. Memory-related GBA increases were revealed over midline parietal areas in the middle of the delay phase and during the presentation of S2 and over frontocentral areas at the end of the delay phase. This replicated previous findings. In addition, nonmatching trials were associated with increased GBA over right parietal areas in response to S2. The midline parietal GBA increase during S2 in the memory condition may have reflected the representation of S1 needed for a comparison between S1 and S2. When S1 and S2 were identical, no further representation was required. In contrast, for nonmatching pairs, a second representation was activated over right parietal areas.

2D/3D image (facial) comparison using camera matching

A problem in forensic facial comparison of images of perpetrators and suspects is that distances between fixed anatomical points in the face, which form a good starting point for objective, anthropometric comparison, vary strongly according to the position and orientation of the camera. In case of a cooperating suspect, a 3D image may be taken using e.g. a laser scanning device. By projecting the 3D image onto a 2D image with the suspect's head in the same pose as that of the perpetrator, using the same focal length and pixel aspect ratio, numerical comparison of (ratios of) distances between fixed points becomes feasible. An experiment was performed in which, starting from two 3D scans and one 2D image of two colleagues, male and female, and using seven fixed anatomical locations in the face, comparisons were made for the matching and non-matching case. Using this method, the non-matching pair cannot be distinguished from the matching pair of faces. Facial expression and resolution of images were all more or less optimal, and the results of the study are not encouraging for the use of anthropometric arguments in the identification process. More research needs to be done though on larger sets of facial comparisons.

A Burial of a Viking Woman at Adwick-le-Street, South Yorkshire

In January 2001, an archaeological watching brief was carried out during the construction of a sewer pipeline at Adwick-le-Street near Doncaster in South Yorkshire. During excavation of a Romano-British trackway ditch, a plough-truncated grave was identified which produced fragmentary skeletal remains and an assemblage of copper-alloy and iron grave goods typical of a female Scandinavian burial of the Viking Period. The grave goods included a plough-damaged copper-alloy bowl, a non-matching pair of oval 'tortoise' brooches and fragments of an iron knife and a key or latch-lifter. Other objects might previously have been removed by ploughing. The oval brooches are typologically the earliest of the four pairs to have been recovered in England from a grave and the first to be excavated under archaeological conditions. The design and condition of the brooches suggest a date for the burial at the end of the 9th century. Isotope analysis of teeth from the skeleton indicates an origin for the woman in either Norway or possibly north-eastern Scotland. Investigation of the grave goods has provided information on manufacturing techniques and costume. No evidence was recovered to suggest why the woman was buried in this location, although a previous discovery of Roman or post-Roman inhumations and cremations nearby and the results of geophysical survey suggest that the excavated grave might form part of a more widely dispersed group of burials.

Discriminating spoken words in French: the role of the syllable and the CV phonological skeleton

Many studies on the role of phonological structure in speech segmentation have used the sequence detection task. Yet, this task may be influenced by post-lexical processing or intentional segmentation. In order to avoid this possible bias, we used a new task requiring the same-different classification of two words. All the experiments were run in French. Experiment 1 manipulated syllabic congruency by comparing first syllable matching and non-matching pairs of words (e.g., ba.lai-ba.llon vs. bal.sa-ba.llon). Consistent with the syllable hypothesis, participants were slower to discriminate between words sharing the first syllable. However, only the fastest responders displayed this effect. In Experiment 2, in which first syllable matching words (e.g., pa.lette-pa.tron) had different C-V structure (CVCVC-CVCCV) while first syllable non-matching words (pal.mé-pa.tron) had identical C-V structure (CVCCV), there was no effect at all. In Experiments 3 and 4 (this latter providing a cross-splicing control for possible acoustic artifacts), the procedure pushed listeners to answer rapidly. In both experiments, the fastest responders showed an advantage for pairs sharing C-V structure over those sharing their first syllable. The whole set of results suggests that, in the discrimination of spoken words, different types of phonological structure play a role at temporally distinct stages of processing: first, a frame specifying consonant-vowel slots, similar to the phonological skeleton proposed by autosegmental linguistic theory, and, at a later stage, the syllabic structure.

New designs of linear-phase transmitter and receiver filters for digital transmission systems

New solutions to the issue of designing transmitter and receiver filters for data transmission are proposed. In this design issue, good frequency selectivity, matched filter pairs, transmit, and receive filters with a linear phase characteristic and zero intersymhol interference (ISI) are desired. As these properties cannot be-simultaneously achieved, most of the previously known algorithms relax the phase-linearity constraint. We show that relaxing the exact zero-ISI or the matched filter pair provides very efficient transmit and receive linear phase filters with high frequency selectivity. Two design algorithms are described: we propose matched filter pairs with very low ISI and nonmatched filter pairs with exact zero-ISI.

Effects of modality on rats' short-term memory in successive matching-to-sample task

This study examined the effects of modality on rats' short-term memory by using the go/no-go delayed paired stimuli comparison task (Konorski task). Each of paired stimuli (S1, S2) was successively presented in order with delay intervals, and a food pellet was contingent upon the lever pressing only when S2 matched S1 (light; L or tone; T). The accuracy of discrimination between the matched and nonmatched pairs decreased as a function of delay interval. Steeper forgetting was shown when a visual stimulus was presented as S1 (S1-L trials) than when an auditory S1 (S1-T trials) was presented. The longer was the ITI duration, the better was the performance in the S1-T trials, but this was not true for the S1-L trials. Further, discrimination performance was an increasing function of the duration of S1 regardless of the modality of S1. These results were discussed mainly on the basis of interference theory and decay theory of forgetting.

Event-related potentials during delayed recognition of Wechsler memory scale-R paired associate learning

The P300 is a component of cortical event related-potentials that has been linked to memory and recognition. This study examined P300 amplitude and latency during recognition of pairs of words from the WMS-R Verbal Paired Associate Learning subscale. After 24 subjects learned the pairs of words, they were shown pairs of words taken directly from the subscale that were combined to form matching or nonmatching pairs. This parallels the Delayed Recall subtest of the WMS-R. P300 amplitude was greater during recognition of matching word pairs and most prominent at central and parietal recording sites. P300 latency was shorter for matching than for nonmatching pairs. This points to a degree of psychophysiological validity of the WMS-R paired associate learning delayed recall task.

Brain potentials in a phonological matching task using Chinese characters

In readers of English, involved in a rhyme judgement task, mismatch trials are associated with an enhanced N450 component of the Event Related Potentials (ERPs). It has been suggested that N450 is related to orthographic or phonological priming. In this paper ERPs were recorded during a phonological matching task, using pairs of logographically dissimilar Chinese characters. A pair was considered to match if they sounded alike with identical phoneme sequences. The subjects (native Chinese speakers) were instructed to ignore vowel-inflections, which in Chinese have lexical status. Since sublexical assembly of phonology is not used in reading Chinese characters, and the members of each pair were logographically dissimilar, match and mismatch trials did not suffer in the amount of orthographic or sublexical phonological priming. An enhanced negative component (latency near 400 msec), was observed in ERPs elicited by the second character in non-matching pairs. The negativity could be similar to N450. If this were so, then N450 could not be associated with orthographic priming, nor with sublexical phonology, but would probably be associated with postlexical processing. Also, in both readers of Chinese and English, the negativity enhanced in non-match trials is larger over the right side of the scalp, suggesting a similar brain lateralization of the underlying processes.

Formation of the sameness-difference concept by Japanese monkeys from a small number of color stimuli.

Japanese monkeys were trained to form the sameness-difference concept. In Experiment 1, four monkeys were trained with two colors to discriminate matching stimulus pairs from nonmatching pairs by reinforcing only lever-pressing responses to matching pairs with a variable-interval schedule. Three monkeys showed successful transfer of this discrimination to two new colors, thus demonstrating that some Japanese monkeys are able to form this relational concept from a minimum number of stimuli. In Experiment 2, two monkeys were trained, in a Yes/No procedure with three colors, to press one lever under matching pairs and another lever under nonmatching pairs. Poor transfer performances to three new colors suggest that simultaneously establishing two different response patterns to matching and nonmatching pairs is ineffective in forming the concept. In Experiment 3, the amount of transfer to three new colors after mastering a standard three-color matching-to-sample task was compared with that of a modified task in which correct responses were reinforced with a within-trial variable-interval schedule. All three monkeys showed greater transfer with the modified procedure. The results suggest that the variable-interval schedule adopted within trials is effective in forming the sameness-difference concept.

Successive matching-to-sample in the pigeon: Variations on a theme by Konorski

In 1959, Konorski proposed a successive matching-to-sample paradigm with which to study short-term memory in animals. Although the technique has been little used, it affords several distinct advantages over more commonly employed matching-to-sample procedures. Konorski’s paradigm involves the successive presentation of a pair of discriminative stimuli with a brief interstimulus interval between them. Reinforcement is scheduled to occur only when the second stimulus of a pair matches the first; otherwise, nonreinforcement follows. An investigation of the pigeon’s food-reinforced keypecking behavior is reported using a variant of Konorski’s technique. Pigeons rapidly learned to differentiate matching and nonmatching stimulus pairs when brief (5-sec) color stimuli were separated by a 1-sec interstimulus interval. No such differentiation arose when control subjects were trained with reinforcement equiprobable on matching and nonmatching trials. No support was found for the notion that correct performance under this successive-matching procedure was due to overt mediating behaviors.

SOME PHYSIOGNOMIC ASPECTS OF NAMING, OR MALUMA AND TAKETE REVISITED.

In an effort to understand some of the functional determinants of naming, Koehler's maluma-takete demonstration was examined in two studies, to see whether the matching of the nonsense words and nonsense figures could be accounted for on the basis of physiognomic similarity, as measured by the semantic differential. Matching was found to occur overwhelmingly in the expected direction, and the similarity of semantic differential locations of matched pairs was far greater than that of non-matched pairs. This held strikingly for “literal” scales (such as “Angular-Rounded”) but also held to a lesser extent for clearly “non-literal” scales (such as “Fresh-Stale”), indicating that physiognomic properties over and beyond simple literal description of the stimuli were involved. Study of the semantic differential locations of letters composing the nonsense words, and of ratings of the “fittingness” of the letters as names for the nonsense figures, showed that the physiognomic similarity presumably mediating the naming phenomenon may, at least in the Koehler demonstration, reside in the individual letters rather than in some emergent quality of the whole word. All in all, the study attempted to go beyond just checking whether a “fittingness” phenomenon occurs in naming, by exploring processes hypothesized to underlie the “fittingness.” In at least some cases, physiognomic similarity may be the psychological process mediating naming.