Lists of 1,440 common English words were presented by a tape recorder to 120 students. The 5s were instructed to press a button whenever denned "target" words occurred. A group of 12 recurring words served as criterion items on subsequent tests of free recall and of recognition memory. Three experimental variables were examined: (a) learning conditions (incidental or intentional), (6) orienting task (stimulus examination or memory examination), and (c) repetition frequency (7, 14, or 28). Results confirmed the hypothesis that listening for semantically (i.e., categorically) defined target words would lead to greater incidental retention than would listening for a single target word (the word "Monday"). It was also observed that (a) intentional learners retained more than incidental learners, (b) repetition facilitated retention to a greater extent for the incidental learners, and (c) effectiveness of the orienting task interacted with the conditions of learning. These results were discussed in terms of the information-processing requirements of the orienting tasks.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission is charged with the responsibility for promulgating safety standards to protect the public against unreasonable risks of injury associated with consumer products.There is a risk of injury from noisy products, directly by damage to hearing and indirectly by degradation of essential speech communication.This report develops criteria relevant to the specification of Safety Standards for noisy consumer products. Consumer product noise is dis-
A behavioral preference procedure, the ’’acoustic menu,’’ was used to assess human aversion to the sounds from two samples of transmission line audible noise and from samples of other environmental noises. The audible (corona) noise produced by extra-high voltage (EHV), overhead transmission lines was tape-recorded during moist weather. Reproduced samples of corona noise, other common environmental noises, and artificial reference stimuli were compared in two experiments. The two corona noise samples were found to be equally preferred to: (1) a 1000 Hz octave band of noise about 11 dB SPL higher than the corona noises and (2) a collection of other environmental noises about 8 dB SPL higher than the corona noises. The corona noise samples were more aversive than the ambient sounds (including rainfall) occurring near rural transmission lines and were roughly equivalent in aversiveness to the noise from a room air conditioner (indoor recording). Knowledge of the source of the corona noise (from photographs and a brief description) did not affect its aversiveness. Of the simple frequency-weighting scales, the A-weighted sound level reduced the difference between the two corona noise samples and the set of other environmental sounds from about 8 dB SPL to about 3 dB. The D-weighted sound level further reduced this discrepancy to about 2 dB. These results were obtained with only two samples of corona noise; other samples may give different results.
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