(c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Auditory scene analysis begins in infancy, making it possible for the baby to distinguish its mother’s voice from other noises in the environment. Despite the importance of this process for human behavior, the question of how perceptual sound organization develops during childhood is not well understood. The current study investigated the role of attention for perceiving sound
streams in a group of school-aged children and young adults. We behaviorally determined the frequency separation at which a set of sounds was detected as one integrated or two separated streams and compared these measures with passively and actively obtained electrophysiological indices (mismatch negativity (MMN) click here and P3b) of the same sounds. In adults, there was a high degree of concordance between passive and active electrophysiological indices of stream segregation that matched
with perception. In contrast, there was a large disparity in children. Active electrophysiological selleck chemical indices of streaming were concordant with behavioral measures of perception, whereas passive indices were not. In addition, children required larger frequency separations to perceive two streams compared to adults. Our results suggest that differences in stream segregation between children and adults reflect an under-development of basic auditory processing mechanisms, and indicate a developmental role of attention for shaping physiological responses that optimize processes engaged during passive audition.
(C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Arrocampo Reservoir is used as a cooling basin for a nuclear power plant located in southern Europe. Its annual mean temperature is about 30 degrees C with maxims that achieved 41.53 degrees C near the hot water effluent. Common carp (Cyprinus corpio, Linnaeus 1758) is the dominant pelagic fish species in this reservoir. Hydroacoustic surveys were conducted bimonthly Farnesyltransferase over 9 years to characterize common carp abundance and distribution in the reservoir on an annual and seasonal temporal scale. Mean fish density during the period was 0.029 fish m(-3), varying from a maximum of 0.038 in 2003 to a minimum of 0.012 in 1998. There were no significant differences in the mean fish density among years. Each year, fish distribution showed significant seasonal variation. Carp were homogeneously distributed during autumn and spring: in winter carp occupied warmer outfall areas, whereas in summer, fish were distributed in the coldest area of the reservoir (dam area) but avoided the warm outfall area. These seasonal tendencies of carp distribution was repeated every years. Behavioural reaction appears to be particularly important in explain carp distribution in this reservoir. (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.