Change detection and schematic processing in music

Research into vision has highlighted the importance of gist representations in change detection and memory. This article puts forth the hypothesis that schematic processing and gist provide an account for change detection in music as well, where a musical gist is an abstracted memory representation for schematically consistent tones. The present experiments illuminate the content of gist memory representations by testing when listeners can detect single-tone changes in pairs of melodies. In Experiment 1, musicians and non-musicians listened to melodies varying in tonal structure. Less structure resulted in compromised change detection in both groups. Most often, musicians displayed more accurate change detection than non-musicians, but, surprisingly, when schematic processing could not contribute to memory encoding, musicians performed worse than their untrained counterparts. Experiment 2 utilized a full-factorial design to examine tonality, interval of pitch change, metrical position, and rhythm. Tonality had a particularly large effect on performance, with non-scale tones generally aiding change detection. Listeners were unlikely, however, to detect schematically-inconsistent tones when only brief melodic context was available. The results uphold the hypothesis that memory for melodies relies on schematic processing, with change detection dependent upon whether the change alters the schematic gist of the melody.

An Activity to Teach Students about Schematic Processing

We designed a classroom activity to foster students' understanding of what schemas are and how they function. We used a video of the instructor as an infant to illustrate how schemas influence gender stereotyping. Before the video, we told students that the baby was either a boy or a girl. After the video, students rated whether the baby would grow up to possess stereotypically male or female traits. Students in the video condition displayed a greater increase in schema knowledge than a control group that did not watch the video. Students also evaluated the activity favorably. We suggest other possible variations of this activity.

Fermentative Biohydrogen Production by Mixed and Pure Bacterial Culture: Designing of Processes and Engineering Control

In this paper the research about applied bio-hydrogen production engineering is introduced. The advantages, disadvantages and characteristics of bio-hydrogen production systems and some technical issues on anaerobic fermentative bio-hydrogen producing systems will be discussed and focused on the schematic processing, designing strategies and engineering control of fermentation parameters and also the technical means to increase the evolved hydrogen and hydrogen evolution rate. The technology of bio-hydrogen production based on ethanol-type fermentative theory has been established. The mixed continuous culture and pure batch culture processes were proposed for hydrogen production.