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Biomedical subjects

S Coren

Publications and source records attributed to S Coren.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1994

Most comfortable listening level as a function of age.

The Most Comfortable Listening Level (MCLL) was determined for a running speech signal in a sample of 799 subjects, ranging in age from 17 to 92 years of age. The MCLL increased monotonically with increasing chronological age, in a non-linear relationship. Before the age of 40 MCLL increased approximately one-third of a dB per annum, while after the age of 65 MCLL increased by more than one half dB per year. Over the 75 year age range MCLL rose by 34 dB. Confirming earlier reports, MCLL was also found to be related to hearing sensitivity. Some implications for the design of sound systems are suggested.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1994

Predicting speech recognition thresholds from pure tone hearing thresholds.

Hearing sensitivity is most commonly still reported in terms of pure tone thresholds. Unfortunately, simple procedures for predicting Speech Recognition Thresholds from Pure Tone Thresholds are not currently available. To remedy this problem, pure tone thresholds were collected from 802 individuals over the range of 250 to 8000 Hz. Five subsets of pure tone thresholds which are commonly used to report hearing status were then considered. An average correlation of 0.878 was found between the various pure tone indexes and the speech recognition threshold. Using regressions between pure tone and the speech measure, a table was constructed that allows conversion of the various pure tone indexes to a predicted speech recognition threshold and involves only a very simple computation.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1994

Eye color and pure-tone hearing threshold.

Pure-tone hearing thresholds at test frequencies, 250, 500, 1000, 2000, 4000, and 8000 Hz, were compared for 149 unambiguously blue- vs 172 brown-eyed individuals. Blue-eyed subjects ages 17 to 30 years (M = 20.3) had a significantly elevated mean hearing threshold at the highest frequency tested.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1994

Handedness and allergic response.

Previous reports have linked nonright-handedness with allergies including hay fever, asthma, eczema and urticaria. The present study examined reactions to 20 common allergens (e.g., food, animal fur, dust, drugs, etc.) in a sample of 430 subjects. Individuals who were left-handed or not consistently right-handed showed an elevated frequency of allergic reactions. The criteria used to determine handedness and the existence of allergies are both important factors. The stringent criterion of consistent right-handedness versus nonright-handedness was a more sensitive measure in detecting allergic individuals than was the simple dichotomy of left- versus right-handed. The association with handedness was stronger for individuals with more than one allergy.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1994

The prevalence of self-reported sleep disturbances in young adults.

The prevalence of seven common patterns of sleep disturbance (delayed sleep onset, frequent wakenings, early wakening, waking tired, disrupted sleep, day napping and nightmares) was assessed in 2,782 young adults (age 17 to 30 years). Only 36% of the sample reported that they were completely free of any sleep disturbance. The data suggest that the various sleep complaints are relatively independent, with low intercorrelations. There were significant sex differences for some problems. Women were more likely to have nightmares, delayed sleep onset and frequent night wakenings, while males were more likely to engage in day napping. These data provide a measure of the prevalence of common sleep disorders and are presented in a format which should facilitate their use for comparative or normative purposes.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1994

The diminished number of older left-handers: differential mortality or social-historical trend?

Recent research suggests that left-handers have shorter life spans. This interpretation could be erroneous if there is a social-historical trend in handedness with older individuals more frequently switched to right-handedness. This would result in fewer older left-handers due to social factors. Two samples (N = 1960 and N = 8526), separated by a 12 year interval were tested. Social-historical hypotheses predict that the later sample should have higher proportions of left-handedness. Although both samples showed decreased sinistrality with age, there was no increase in the proportion of left-handers over the 12 year period, suggesting that the rarity of older left-handers is due to reduced longevity.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1993

Prediction of physiological arousability: a validation of the Arousal Predisposition Scale.

The Arousal Predisposition Scale (APS) is a brief (12-item) scale, that purportedly measures arousability, and has already been shown to predict task related arousal changes measured via self-report indexes. To determine if APS scores could predict individual differences in physiological measures of arousal, it was administered to 239 subjects. From this group, 9 highly arousable subjects and 9 low arousable subjects (based on APS scores) were selected. Each subject was repeatedly exposed to an arousing stimulus consisting of a 105 dB white noise. Electrodermal activity and the electromyographic response were used as indexes of change in autonomic and affective arousal. Subjects who scored highly arousable on the APS showed a greater change in electrodermal and electromyographic response than subjects judged low on arousability. This appears to validate the usefulness of the APS as a measure of individual differences in predisposition toward arousability.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1993

A replay of the baseball data.

Fudin, Renninger, Lembessis, and Hirshon (1993) reported a nonsignificant longevity advantage for right-handers in their analysis of archival baseball data, although the absolute values are still in the predicted direction. Differences in specific data entries and analyses are difficult to resolve; however, there is some indication that the data base that they analyzed differs from that in our study. Further, their use of parametric statistics, given distributional problems and grossly unequal group sizes, may account for the nonsignificance they observed, when compared to the nonparametric analyses that we used. While we considered our original study a pilot project, the literature now contains hundreds of studies that show that left-handedness is associated with a wide range of health-risk factors including serious accidents, immune system disorders, and birth-related complications that involve reduced oxygen. A recent study of the archival records of over 3000 cricket players showed a significant advantage of over 2 years in longevity for right-handed cricket players. On the basis of these findings, we still believe that left-handedness is a marker for reduced longevity.

Baseball↗
PubMed1993

Measurement of handedness via self-report: the relationship between brief and extended inventories.

Three self-report measures of handedness were explored. For simple dichotomous classification into right- versus left-handed groups, a brief (4-item) and an extended (12-item) inventory produced 98.8% classification concordance in a sample of 250 subjects. When handedness was treated as a continuous variable, indexes based upon the short and expanded scales correlated highly (r = 0.95). A single-item handedness measure was also created which produced handedness classifications which were better than 97% concordant with the brief and extended handedness scales for dichotomous classification. The methodological implications of these findings for handedness measurement are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1993

Size contrast as a function of conceptual similarity between test and inducers.

In four experiments, the effect of the semantic relationship between test and inducing stimuli on the magnitude of size contrast in an Ebbinghaus-type illusion was explored. In Experiments 1 and 2, the greatest illusion was found when test and inducing stimuli were identical in shape and differed only in size. Decreased size contrast was found when inducing stimuli were drawn from the same category as the test stimulus, but were not visually identical. Even less size contrast was found when inducing stimuli were from a near conceptual category, with the least effect when they were drawn from a completely different category. In Experiment 3, it was demonstrated that even if test and inducing stimuli are drawn with identical geometric elements, the size contrast illusion is greatly reduced if they represent apparently different conceptual categories (through the manipulation of orientation and perceptual set). In Experiment 4, any geometric or spatial confounds were ruled out. These results suggest that size contrast is strongly influenced by the conceptual similarity between test and inducing stimuli.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1992

The development and cross-validation of a self-report inventory to assess pure-tone threshold hearing sensitivity.

Previous attempts to assess hearing loss by means of self-report survey items have shown only low to moderate correlations with actual audiometric measures, probably because these attempts used items with high face validity rather than laboratory-tested validity. Beginning with a pool of 108 items used with 384 individuals, we developed a self-report inventory (see Appendix) suitable for group testing or survey administration, which appears to have high correlation with pure-tone hearing thresholds. The inventory was then cross-validated against laboratory audiometric measures in a separate sample of 422 subjects. The resulting 12-item Hearing Screening Inventory (HSI) was shown to be reliable with an internal consistency coefficient (alpha) of 0.89 and test-retest stability coefficient of 0.88. The correlation between pure-tone hearing thresholds in the better ear and the HSI scores for the combined samples was r = 0.81. The correct classification rate for the HSI was 92.1% for a low fence of 25-dB hearing level and 93.4% for a high fence of 55-dB hearing level. A conversion equation with estimated variability is also provided for point estimates of pure-tone hearing thresholds from the HSI scores. A copy of the inventory and scoring procedure is appended to this report.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Amodal completion, depth stratification, and illusory figures: a test of Kanizsa's explanation.

Subjective contours have been explained by Kanizsa as being a consequence of amodal completion of incomplete figures. According to the theory of amodal completion, figural incompleteness triggers the emergence of an illusory object superimposed on the gaps in the inducers, which in turn hide parts of the pattern, thus suggesting that the plane of the illusory object must always be seen to be above the plane of the inducers. A figure was created in which subjective contours are seen despite the fact that the perceived depth relationships run counter to that required by the theory of amodal completion. In four experiments, this depth relationship is confirmed by using direct and indirect measures which assess both registered and apprehended depth. By emphasizing a logical inconsistency in the explanation based on amodal completion, the results show that amodal completion, at least in Kanizsa-like patterns, cannot be considered as a causal factor for subjective contour figures.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

The moon illusion: a different view through the legs.

The fact that the overestimation of the horizon moon is reduced when individuals bend over and view it through their legs has been used as support for theories of the moon illusion based upon angle of regard and vestibular inputs. Inversion of the visual scene, however, can also reduce the salience of depth cue, so illusion reduction might be consistent with size constancy explanations. A sample of 70 subjects viewed normal and inverted pictorial arrays. The moon illusion was reduced in the inverted arrays, suggesting that the "through the legs" reduction of the moon illusion may reflect the alteration in perceived depth associated with scene inversion rather than angle of regard or vestibular effects.

Cues↗
PubMed1992

Subjective contours 1900-1990: research trends and bibliography.

A bibliography on subjective contours and a brief summary of trends in research on this problem are presented. The bibliography covers the years 1900-1990 and contains 445 entries, each briefly annotated with a code that indicates the general content and theoretical orientation of the item.

Form Perception↗
PubMed1991

Left-handedness: a marker for decreased survival fitness.

Life span studies have shown that the population percentage of left-handers diminishes steadily, so that they are drastically underrepresented in the oldest age groups. Data are reviewed that indicate that this population trend is due to the reduced longevity of left-handers. Some of the elevated risk for sinistrals is apparently due to environmental factors that elevate their accident susceptibility. Further evidence suggests that left-handedness may be a marker for birth stress related neuropathy, developmental delays and irregularities, and deficiencies in the immune system due to the intrauterine hormonal environment. Some statistical and physiological factors that may cause left-handedness to be selectively associated with earlier mortality are also presented.

Functional Laterality↗