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User:Moraghjang

Hello, My name is Moragh Jang and I am in my fourth year of Neuroscience at Dal. I have taken several classes in development and speech production and perception, all of which I have enjoyed thoroughly. I am currently working on my honours thesis under the supervision of Dr. Dennis Phillips, focusing on hearing. I am interested in pursuing careers teaching and/or hearing and language research.

Blog Post 1
"Moragh your asian....your supposed to good at math!"- a not-so good friend of mine from grade 4. I used to hear this all the time; being half chinese, I should be good at math. Now thats a pretty bold statement. Where on earth does this stereotype come from? Well, if you look at the stats, its true that chinese, japanese and korean children tend out perform north americans in basic arithmetic and other mathematical problem solving tasks. Where does this advantage come from? Many argue that it is the higher in expectations set by teachers, parents and asian school systems, the fact that asian students on average spend more time in school and on homework nightly, but could the advantage come from the difference in their languages of math? There is lots of evidence to support the idea that the mathematical language (the system for naming numbers) embedded in most asian languages has a profound influence on the way that their users solve problems; that in asian countries, the languages spoken there influences the very way that they think. I am going to talk about a few argument that have lead me to believe that this could be the case, that the language used by asian cultures could very well be what is influencing their mathematical ability. Lets look at digit span for a starter, a very useful tool when considering calculations requiring you to remember long strings of numbers. Many asian languages have numbers names that are very short relative to the names for the same number in english. If you are asked to memorize a string of numbers, wouldnt it be advantageous to be able to repeat it in your head more times before forgetting it. Well if your number names are very short, than you could hypothetically repeat the string more times within that short period before forgetting them thus have better rehearsal of these number, in turn translating to potentially better recall. Asian speakers also learn to count earlier in life because their number names are simply combinations of a few base numbers (1-10), while english speakers have to learn unique names for numbers. Take the number 13 for example, in japanese, korean and chinese it would be called something like "one-three", while in English it would be thirteen. In English you need just under 30 unique name codes to count to one hundred compared to ten codes in Chinese for example. Well their system makes a heck of a lot more sense to me. It seems subjectively to be such a more logical system, while the system for naming numbers in English is so weird and irrational. If math were that easy, perhaps I would like it more, perhaps I would enjoy doing my math homework, perhaps I would do better on my tests and my parents and teachers would praise me more which I would continue to strive for and perhaps, following this self fulfilling prophecy, I would be better at math! Perhaps language is not what perpetuates this advantage, but it could certainly kick start the system so to speak. Though i am not one hundred percent convinced that differences in mathematical languages are at the core of the differential in mathematic performance between asian and western cultures, I do believe that is warrants some thought. "So listen hear not-so-good friend from grade 4...I don't speak a word of chinese....so no! I am not "supposed" to be any better at math than you!"

Blog Post 2 "Thats just not punny!"
"A bicycle cannot stand on its own because it is two-tire" .....or how about "what did the aspiring Tao master say to the hot dog vendor?....Make me one with everything." , oh wait! this one is applicable "A rule of grammar: double negatives are a no-no."...Are you shaking your head yet? Every body (who understands it at least) gets a kick out of a really good pun. We applaud "good" ones and shake our heads at "bad" ones, but what determines what is good and what is bad? I have spent my whole life not understanding puns, being the last one to get the joke, or being the first one to make a pun and have people say "really?....are you ninety? That was lame." These unfortunately-corny, yet clever, jokes that make people giggle and/or groan mystify me. They raise so many questions in my mind. Is it right for us to take credit for being quick and getting the joke right away, or being the clever one to come up with them if we could not really explain to nyone how we figure them out? Are you are just good at them or bad at them, or can you GET good or bad at them? What does our brain activity look like online when reading or hearing puns? Does it resemble a garden path sentence? In order to maximize the enjoyment you get out of a good pun you really need to understand what it actually says semantically and what was actually said. I bet our ERP look similar to those of garden path sentence readers or sentences with something wrong in them. Where does this myth that puns are old-people-jokes come from? Does our ability to understand and generate puns change with age? Why might this be? Does it make a difference whether we hear them or are able to read them and get additional cues from the syntax of the sentence? How do puns work in individuals who communicate using sign language? There are so many questions that I would love to see answered. Perhaps answering them will be my home work for the week and post some answers or more puns in Blog 3, after all "seven days without a pun makes one weak!"

Blog Post 3 "the chicken or the egg?"
I am going to throw some ideas out there that came to me during lecture and unfortunately these ideas are almost completely unrelated to one another. As such I will simply mention them in the order that they were scribbled in the margin of my notebook. Firstly, I am wondering what the correlate of prosody would be for individuals who use sign language to communicate. Would it be an abruptness of fluidity to their gestures, or perhaps the addition of exaggerated facial expressions? I understand that you could convey sarcasm through choices of words or signs, where individuals who use spoken language would use prosody, but there would be a certain amount of information lost in the inability to use certain inflection I would think. Do individuals who are aprosodic have the same difficulty with sarcasm as these individuals who use sign? Similar in thought to the motor theory, would aprosodic individuals be able to produce prosody in their speech and use it in the same manner as individuals without this deficit? What came first; our ability to understand or produce prosodic elements of speech? Is aprosodia a problem with speech perception or a fundamental auditory deficit? There is lots of research on this and i intend to elaborate on it in future posts once I decide what my stand point is. In keeping with the who-came-first-the-chicken-or-the-egg argument of the motor theory, I propose a rebuttal to the argument that because aphasic individuals can still understand speech in light of not being able to produce it or vice versa. My rational is this; individuals who acquire brain damage were obviously not born with it, as such, at one point in time they might have been able to learn the association between their the motor output and auditory input, so even if they lost the ability to articulate words vocally, they would still have the memory and template for comparison between what they say and what they hear. SO using this as an argument against the motor theory is not very strong. I still don't believe in the motor theory, but I am simply arguing that aphasia as evidence against the theory is not a particularly valid point. On a completely different note, am also very interested in why on earth animals would have categorical perception. Might this imply that they have the propensity to learn language or understand it? Also, even though we are not very good at it, would we as native english speakers ever use within-category discrimination? I simply cant think of any examples off the top of my head where we do use within category discrimination (i.e. different kinds of /ba/ or /da/). Is our poor within category discrimination a function of the fact that we don't use it in our language or is it not used in our language because we are not good at it? Again, that darn chicken and that darn egg!

blog 5: Spoductions in Preech error
While writing my text book chapter on models of speech production, I could not help but fixate on how fascinating speech errors are and how much they really do tell us about the "mind-to-mouth" process. I was also speaking with a friend who is writing their chapter on pidgins, chreole and home-sign, and we started talking about how the evolution of home sign and chreoles in sign language; she also came across alot of literature on production errors in sign language and how it they are produced. We noted especially how interesting that the same sorts of mistakes seem to happen in both verbal and non-verbal languages. More specifically that in both types of language are produced holistically (whole phrase at a time), and that within each phrase there was an internal structure that whose linguistic components are produced in a very specific order. It was neat that our "tip of the Tongue" was their "Tip of the finger" and that our "Slip of the tongue" was their "SLip of the hand", and that for both modalities of language speech errors were able to tell a lot about the order of this processing and that both languages follow very specific rules of production. More over that both languages store language in simple basic units that we can make many combinations with and that regardless of how you speak, humans have a single language faculty. In my literature review I came across a paper called read my "Read My Lips", about speech errors and Kenzi the Bonobos. They were able to demonstrate that bonobos also seem to have complex categorization systems when discriminating lexigrams and that when errors were made in lexigram dicrimination it was almost always between semantically related lexigrams. For example, when she wanted blackberries, Kenzi often mistakenly selected the lexigram for blueberries, grapes or other edible fruits, and that she and other bonobos only ever confused lexigrams of verbs with other ones of verbs, and nouns for nounds, never nouns for verbs, indicating that they may be all stored within the same "node" and that perhaps the way that Bonobos and other apes produce overt communication could be modelled by spreading activation theories similar to the way that human speech is currently modelled. In this same article (which then led me to look at others of a similar variety), they also talked about research conducted matched types of speech errors with their level of speech development. They found in their research that adults actually make more anticipatory (frive fat frogs) that perseveration speech errors (five fat fogs). This is right in line with research conducted by the infamous Dell (psycholinguist founder of Dell model of Speech production), who found that more errors of activation of future or present nodes occur than past nodes (referring to nodes representing components of the phrase). Thus the more practice one gets, and the more nodes one has acquired, the high the propensity to make errors, or a Dell says "Whatever makes you more error- prone makes your errors more perseveratory." I also found some stats that say that signers make fewer speech errors than speakers and it took me a minute to realize why. Then it struck me, and this idea was also backed up in a bunch of papers; that signing is much slower than speaking, so signers have a better chance of catching and fixing their mistakes than do speakers. This is right in line with the idea tacit to Dells model that spreading activation extinguishes over time or earlier models where there is a self-monitoring component, which needs time to work. Another idea, a new way of thinking about spoonerisms, also immerged in the papers i was reading on signing errors. First the authors outlined how slips of the hand often involved blends rather than whole symbol exchanges and similar studies of speakers found that when spoonerisms occur, the shape of the tongue and mouth nd vocal tract are actually trying to pronounce the two sounds (target and mistaken one) at the same time; that the mistake is not merely a substitution of mental symbols but a collision of motor commands. This research was fairy recent (2008 i believe), I would like to see whether they have made any further claims about these speech errors, and whether if they teach bonobos actual sign languages and not just lexicon disriminations, whether they too would show the same sort of errors.

blog 6
Blog 6: I have two separate thoughts that I wish to discuss in this entry, the first involves the idea of speech impediments that go unnoticed, and the second investigates speech production models and ways to test them. I had a dear friend of mine come to visit over the break whome I have known for several years now, and though he is a very interesting character, I have never had trouble understanding him in conversation. It became clear to me though that this is likely due to practice because listening to him converse with my housemates and seeing their reaction to the things he said made it clear that he does not annunciate very well, in fact he is very difficult to understand. He not only speaks very, very quickly, but his Ms and his Bs kind of sound the same and he has a very nasal quality to his voice which makes it hard to used the vowel sounds to deduce what he is saying. I used to speak in a similar fashion, so quickly that no one could understand me, but I have since grown out of this, but my friend has not. Why is it that I and not he were able to overcome this? Was it because people persistently told me to slow down, or that I eventually heard what how unintelligible I sounded. Surely, being a very social person he has lots of exposure to well articulated and annunciated language, doe she not realize that he sounds different and that he is difficult to understand? This question comes back to different theories of speech acquisition, he is clearly not matching the sounds that he produces with those that he hears, unless he does not hear the difference. So is this a hearing or a speech deficit? How could this be tested and how could you discriminate between the two deficits if they present the same way? How many people’s speech deficits stem from or are confused with fundamental auditory deficits? Are conduction and mechanical hearing impairments at the heart of speech production errors and if so which ones? He was also telling me about migraines that he gets which brought about the conversation we had in class about strokes and migraines and how they can affect speech. I showed him the video of the news reporter reporting from the Oscars a few years ago (or last year not sure), the one that Dr. Newman showed us in class and something occurred to me. Though the reporter clearly had a momentary lapse in her ability to produce intelligible spoken language, it was really only the words and syntax that were lost, while intonation and gestures remained intact. Another important thing that I noted was that she said the word tonight seemingly in the right place and time in the sentence without any difficulty, but that she had made errors in production leading up to and following the word tonight. How could this be? Can this tell us anything about the order of events that went into planning the sentences that she was going to say? Also, was she reading a teleprompter, had she already read and planned what she was going to say and had plenty of time to rehearse? Why would a word in the middle of the phrase, the intonation and the gestures all be intact while the rest was lost? Is there any way of studying the effect of migraines, loss of blood flow or response of various brain areas and their affect on speech production online? Perhaps using local anesthetics or Transcranial magnetic stimulation. I will do some research on this and perhaps add it to my chapter on models of speech production; I think I could find a way for it, or something like it to apply.

blog7:Music makes the world go round
It has been known for a long time that humans process speech and non-speech sounds separately. It seems fitting then that there would be aphasias that produce deficits that implicate speech or non-speech sound processing in isolation, such as amusia, music being composed of non-speech sounds. I am doing my honours research on human’s ability to detect irregularities in otherwise periodic sounds (the ability to detect a small amount of jitter in a train of clicks). Our ability to detect these irregularities and the accuracy of our auditory systems temporal acuity at low frequencies (the frequencies of clicks in all of the test trains are considered to be low frequency) depends on, among other factors, the ability of our auditory nerves to phase-lock the timing of their action potentials to the period of the stimulus waveform. This phase locking is what allows our auditory system to track smooth, continuous frequency modulations, like those produced in speech as intonation contours, as well as those produced in music as melody or vibrato. Individuals who are unable to phase-lock properly, due damage or pathology implicating the auditory nerve and its spike timing, have difficulty understanding speech and not surprisingly, their perception of music is impaired as well. If these individuals were able to describe music, I wonder how they would describe it. Would they be able to appreciate an opera singer’s tremolo or the quality of sound produced by a skilled sax player? Or would it sound like a series of discontinuous pitches that are just too sharp or just too flat. These individuals are considered to be amusic and aprosodic, for both speech and non-speech sound. I am currently determining the minimum detectable irregularities in adult listeners with normal hearing, but I would love to see how amusic individuals perform on this task, whether their thresholds would be significantly worse than controls. I would also like to see how individuals with specific communication disorders perform on this jitter detection task, particularly those who have difficulty understanding prosody and intonation. I wonder whether individuals who are unable to detect or perceive emotionality in speech, as is seen in many individuals diagnosed with autism or autism spectrum disorder, would perform poorly on this task. I hope that eventually, we will be able to develop a clinical test that would pinpoint the origin of pathology of many communication disorders like those mentioned above; individuals who perform normally on this task would have intact auditory nerves and nuclei (because this task requires it to perform phase-locking) and if not, than it very well could be a problem with the auditory nerve. This could save hundreds of hours and dollars and effort and headaches for people who receiving treatment of something that is untreatable at present. Dr. Newman mentioned in class that like certain phonemes, during development, there is a critical period for humans to be exposed to certain types of music and certain scales in order for us to be able to recognize and discriminate them from non-musical combinations of notes and rhythms. I wonder then whether other organisms, never having been exposed to music in their natural environments could discriminate between what is musical and what is not. It is something that so many grade five students set out to test with their science fair projects; measuring the effect of classical music exposure or the like. Well maybe they are not that far off, I wonder whether there are certain melodies or chords or combinations of the latter that animals prefer; whether animals stress hormone levels, eating/ sleeping/ mating habits and behavior in general is affected by exposure certain types of music (with intensity/loudness held constant). Wow! My brain hurts! I think that before I delve to far into the dream world of nifty yet scientifically unviable experiments I should stop writing and start looking these things up. If I find anything interesting or supportive of any of these ideas I will post the links!

Blog 8: "Da-di-da-di-da"...or is it "dDi-da-di-da-d"i
Last night as I stared blankly at the darkness of my room, trying desperately to fall asleep, the song "No Italiano" by Yolanda Be Cool was annoyingly running through my head non-stop. It was bizarre though, because it was not the tune so much as the rhythm of the song, and an internally verbalized version of it. Not verbalized by being paired to the song actual lyrics, rather it was simply paired with "Di-da-doo-da....Di-da-doo-da-di-da", if you know the some this might seem to make more sense, it is a very catch tune. Either way I started thinking about how when we produce a melody, however simple, we tend to pair melody with this seemingly random morphemes, if not with the lyrics them selves. For example, Beethoven’s fifth symphony " becomes "dah dah dah duuuuhn...dah.dah.dah.duhhn", and guitar riffs from the Beetles "Day Tripper" come out "neeeeeer, nir, nir, na ni neer, naneeer, naneenire"; you get the picture. I also noticed that I tend when pairing the morphemes /Di/ and /Da/, the order that I produce them is not really random; I tend to end with a /Da/ in a string of /da/s and /di/s if the melody keeps going, and end with a /Di/ to terminate the melody. I wonder what this is based on. I wonder whether it has anything to do with the frequency of words and morphemes patterns that we are exposed to effects this order. It also just feels so unnatural start with /Da/ than with /Di/. I wonder whether people who speak a language with a lot of words that end in /a/ , would find the reverse to be true. I also liken the sound of the morpheme /da/ to the sound of the verbal clutch “uh”, which native English speakers tend to insert between words, or in the I suppose this thought stemmed from our recent discussion on language and music. During that class we talked a bit about how singing with words tends to facilitate accurate melody production and the corresponding melody discriminations. It made me reflect upon, and inevitably admit, my inability to do a Cranium Humdinger (also if you haven't played that game, I would suggest it), where you try to get your team to guess the name of a song by simply humming it, without having to battle the urge to fill in all that sweet, sweet humming with those sing-song morphemes like "di-da-doo", "la-dee-dee", or "tralalala". It seems so much easier to stay on pitch, and so much easier for my team to guess what I am singing. I wonder whether this burning urge to sing even the most random morphemes comes efforts to facilitate my own memory of the often-times obscure target melodies, or simply my urge to give my team hints by trying to sound like the most recognizable instrument that plays the target melody/rhythm, be it guitar, sax, drum. It also made me think about how prevalent the tip-of-the-tongue phenomena occurs in that task; if only I knew one lyric, or if only I could think of how that song starts…Just give me the opening line, or opening note. It also started me thinking about whether these types of singsong morphemes are universal or whether they are language specific. It could also just be a personal thing. I would like to find out more.

Blog 9: Hello Language....goodbye language
First a little tangent: I was just having this conversation with some one in the class about blogs etc. and we started talking about her blog on the cartoon that Dr. Newman showed us in class and I mentioned to her that I truthfully thought he was showing it for some other reason than why he was actually showing it. He was using it as a demonstration of how people use gestures by having someone come up to the front of the class after we watched the cartoon (it was of Tweety and Sylvester I think) and explain the story and have us play close attention to her choices of gestures. While we were watching it however, a clip of about seven minutes or so contained a total of about 12 words, all spoken by Tweety's owner, yet we were able to follow the whole story with only that much narration. It got me thinking the the reason that we are able to follow these stories, where the main characters hardly say a thing, is because of their extreme hyperbolic facial expressions and and body movements. THey say so much with their gestures and their timing. I thought that that was the point he was trying to make. And then It got me thinking about silent film and how very much we can derive from clips with no speech. WE do so much top-down processing and seem to require spoken language. Second tangent, why then if we can get the gist of things without spoken language do we need it? We can clearly communicate with out it, if we practice. Does it really make us smarter than any other species or superior? I don't think so. Nor is it something that we (our generation) can take credit for, it was taught to us, and has been passed down. Just because other organisms seem to be able to communicate just fine without it does not make us superior to them. If they have not evolved to speak a language its because there have been no evolutionary pressures to do so, if there were, then i am confident that it could have evolved in many other species, spoken language that is. Organisms that closely resemble their ancient ancestors, the ones who have not evolved a whole lot, are the ones who got it right the first time. I think that, if they had the propensity to do so, they are the ones who should take credit. They are the species that nature prefers. Okay, now that that is all out of me. What i really wanted to write about was, sort of touching on development, but the idea language has evolved so much even in the last few hundred years and that the increase in technology and global communication has accelerated it. This stemmed from a conversation i had with my friends eleven year old sister. I had asked what sort of books or novels they were reading in english class (she is in grade 4 i think) and she told me they were reading Romeo and Juliet! I did not read that until I was in grade ten...until i was like sixteen at least. It was not a question of appropriateness to me but rather whether or not kids this age can really understand the language of Shakespeare. Come to think of it though, I don't think i fully understood it in grade ten. Will it have any context to her? This whole thing also made me think about how we seem to condense everything we say, especially when telling stories no more of these big long epilogues....time and space are money, if you cant write in 50 characters or less don't bother!. Strange attitude, but its all around us, and i think it is heavily responsible for the lack of vocabulary witnessed in todays youth " Y would u go thru the f-ort? wrds r $, we gotta sav'm". REally though. It seems like the only words that are being learned, taught and used are the ones that will make your life easier, the ones that let you get your message across faster and clearer. Words are no longer being chosen to elaborately describe exactly how your feeling, especially now that there are emotocons for very thing. I think language development is going full circle, and that we are slowly but surely eliminating all words in our vocabulary that are superfluous and keeping only those that have concrete meaning, our language is becoming less and less metaphoric. Eventually, we will be back to just " where nomnom? Me want nomnom" ( this may be an exaggeration but it illustrates the point). All in all i think that it is great that this young girls grade five class is studying Shakespeare, if we don't give children the words early on they will never loose them and they will be lost and gone forever.

Blog 10: My hypothetical Switchboard model of Speech production and perception
Don’t be deceive, I have long ramble before I get to how this blog is related to the title, but it all makes sense in the end. I am working as a research assistant in one of the psychology labs at DAL and for the particular study we are working on, we have to run all of our participants through intelligence tests. The one that we use most often is the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI), which has two verbal components and two performance components. For one of the verbal components we have participants define a series of words and in the second we have participants tell us how pairs of words are similar. Many of the words have multiple possible definitions that we would issue perfect scores for and I should note that the participants thus far have all been children. I have been running these since last term and only this term did I start to pay attention to the types of errors that people are making when defining the words and generating similarities. Some of the definitions that they provide are semantically very similar to the target definitions of the words. For example, the word impertinent is often incorrectly defined as “something that is very important” (pertinent); semantically related to the target because their definitions both have to do with relative importance. A second example of incorrect definitions, in this case that is phonetically similar to the target is when children define panacea as “when all of the continents were attached together/ when America and Africa were the same island” or something along those lines mistaking the target word with Pangaea. When they mis-define the word intermittent as “between two mittents” we can see how the morpheme inter is looked at in isolation. All of these are real examples from children that I have tested or whose WASI’s I have scored. These types of error seem logical according to a connectionist model of speech perception and production, where all nodes associated with the definition of the target word are activated along with nodes sharing common semantic (example one), phonemic (example two), or morpheme (example three) components with that definition or word. When it comes to the similarities component however, where the children are often asked to tell use how two completely opposing ideas are related (such as love and hate), the children often have difficulty producing similarities, getting stuck on the idea that the words are opposites. This fact emphasizes that we don’t seem to have conscious access to which nodes are being activated, if we did, and if a connectionist model is used, we might be able to work backwards and find out which nodes are co-activated. We asked all of the children to do this for about 20 pairs of words, such as Blue-red, Grape-strawberry, Photograph-song etc., to which the children typically respond, “ They are both colors/fruit/art forms” respectively. The children clearly understand the task and understand that other words that are opposites have some similarities, like smooth-rough for example. They will tell me accurately that both are textures. Sometimes however, they will just say “No. They are opposites” “ true but how are they similar”, “ they aren’t they are just opposite, they are completely different”. After writing my chapter on the models of speech production, now whenever I encounter this type of response rigidity it makes me wonder whether the existing connectionist models could really apply to this situation. It makes me think that such a model would have to include some kind of node that describes the relationship between words (how they are similar/different etc.) beyond their grammatical function (I.e. Both are nouns/verb/adjectives). Such a node does not exist in any of the models that I found. This kind of node might act like a switch of a switchboard, narrowing down the possible associations between words. For example, there could be a node that allows for activation of further nodes that describe how two words are similar and a second for activation of how two words are different. The “different” and the “similar” nodes would be competing for activation. Thus, when accessing similarities between words, the nodes for both words (phonetic, grammatical, semantic etc. nodes) would be activated in addition to a the “relation switch” nodes; if the “how are they similar node” is activated more strongly than the “how are they different node” then the children will respond correctly, but if this relative activation is reversed then the differences node will prevail and the child will only be able to think of and fixate on how the words are different. At the end of the similarities component, after I have technically finished recording responses, some of the children want to go back and “fix” their answers and so to humor them I will ask them go back and repeat the pairs that they got stuck on. The result of this further support the switchboard idea because when the child thinks about something else for a while, or is allowed to do a few different similarities before returning the word pair they were stuck on, they suddenly seem to be able to generate similarities between the words. It is clear that they have not gained any new knowledge over the course of the five or minutes between attempts, however they seem to have a new perspective, a new insight, something that they had stored up in that little head of theirs, just something that for what ever reason they could not access. Perhaps, this time around, the similarities switch, instead of the differences switch was more strongly activated, which lead to propagating activating of the commonalities between the words as opposed to their differences .

Blog 12: Course Feedback and beyond
Please understand that this is clearly not personal and that I will highlight the things about the course that i would have changed, while focussing less on the good things because I feel that you may already know what is good about the course etc. I dont intend for this to be rambly, however i fully expect it will reduce to that. I like many things and disliked some things as well about many aspects of this course. Firstly, I dont feel that a background in cognitive psychology is necessary for someone to follow along and do just fine in this course. The only reason that i took cognitive was because it was a necessary prereq for this course and I dont feel that much or any of the stuff we learned in cognitive was essential for this course. In fact we skipped the language section in cognitive, and the cognitive course was not very stimulating, so If you have the opportunity to save many students many dollar on a course, please in the future have this course be an open, no pre-req course. Secondly, though i understand the efforts to make teach this course in an alternative way, I feel that not testing students on the material allowed students not to attend and also did not encourage people to be paying attention. Thirdly, the only time I used the textbook was as a reference for my online chapter, and because we were not being tested, I found very little incentive to read it; if you suggest a textbook that is so expensive please use it or refer to it or do not assign one at all, especially one that could not be purchased second hand. I think that the weekly blogs are a good idea, however I know that myself and several classmates that I spoke with had a hard time thinking of topics to discuss, perhaps coming up with a few reflection questions and having participant choose from them or just write about what ever they want. I think that giving people a target question would definitely help direct blog posts. Perhaps you could do this by reserving few minutes at the end of class, because most often we ended a good ten minutes early, to having an open discussion about something contraversial(this might be a good time to adress issues that came up in the debates instead of actually having debates). About debates; having group projects towards the end of a 3rd/4th year course is not wise. PEople get bitter and angry and are not friendly and are far too busy to be coordinating with strangers. Group presentations are tough not just dynamics-wise, but organisationally. The benefit of the "team-work" experience is not out-weighed by the inconvenience. The debate topics were okay, but often required much more background than was able to be delivered in the eight minute talks. I think it would be more effective and engaging to adress those questions in class but not in a debate form. DEbates also are unnecessarily stressful. Using wikiversity, despite it being a neat thought turned out to be very stressful as well. I feel that I struggled more with learning how to write HTML than i did learning things in the course. It was very frusterating trying to get things to work and insert figures etc.etc. Please dont have peoples marks dependent on their ability to struggle with learning how to format webpages. not a good use of our time. Wikveristy while making info accessible to the world, made earning marks feel inaccessable. I do appreciate that there were many opportunities in the class to get good grades and/ or to make up grade, however I think the blogs in addition to a few exams would be appropriate. Additionally, I am sure that you have heard this a bunch and have marked accordingly, however, as far as the debates go, if you do end up doing it again, have the sign up dates and topics available from the beginning of the semester so that people can plan ahead. We did not have enough time to fit it into our schedules (many of us), thus we did not do our best because we were not ablet o devout enough time to it. It was a good idea to get us to give peer feedback, but for some of us the peer feedback did not help us in any way to improve our chapter outlines, in which case, for individuals who got nononstuctive or limited feedback, further feedback should have been provided so that everyone got the same amount. Overall, I think that the course became annoying with all of the little assignments, which in the end disengaged or jaded people. I think that the way that the instructor was very available and approachable was great and most feedback on assigments was also good and consructive. the course material felt VERY repetitive. I think that tests would be good because the course material is exciting, but it is really easy to not get involved and it is hard to get interested without getting invested. Good luck with the course next year. I hope this is useful. I feel that the general flow of the course was good, the outline was well constructed however, it was hard to get into the material knowing that you would not be tested on any of it directly. I

title: User:Moraghjang


text:
Psycholinguistics/Models of Speech Perception

Introduction
Speech perception is the process by which speech is interpreted. Speech perception involves three processes, hearing, interpreting and comprehending all of the sounds produced by a speaker. The combination of these features into an order that resembles speech of a given language is a main function of speech perception. Speech perception includes combining not only the phonology and phonetics of the speech to be perceived, but also the syntax of the language and the semantics of the spoken message. Adequate speech perception requires a model which will unite all the various components of speech and produce a comprehensive message. Various models have been developed to help understand the methods behind perceiving different components of speech. There are models that function on the production or perception of speech solely, and there are other models that combine both speech production and perception together. Some of the first models produced date back in time until about the mid 1900's, and models are continually being developed today.

TRACE Model
TRACE model for speech perception was one of the first models developed for perceiving speech, and is one of the better known models. TRACE Model is a framework in which the primary function is to take all of the various sources of information found in speech and integrate them to identify single words. The TRACE model, founded by McClelland and Elman (1986) is based on the principles of interactive activation. All components of speech (features, phonemes, and words) have their own role in creating intelligible speech, and using TRACE to unite them leads to a complete stream of speech, instead of individual components. The TRACE model is broken into two distinct components. TRACE I deals mainly with short segments of real speech, whereas TRACE II deals with identification of phonemes and words in speech.The model as a whole, consists of a very large number of units which are organized into three separate levels. Each level is comprised of a bank of detectors for distinguishing the components of that level.

 * Feature level - At this level, there are several banks of feature detectors. Each features has its only place in speech time, and they are organized in successive order.
 * Phoneme level- At this level, there is a bank of detectors for each phoneme present in the speech sounds.
 * Word level - At this level there is a bank of detectors for each individual word that is spoken by the speaker.

The TRACE model works in two directions. TRACE allows for either words or phonemes to be derived from a spoken message. By segmenting the individual sounds, phonemes can be determined from spoken words. By combining the phonemes, words can be created and perceived by the listener.

Motor Theory Model
This model was developed in 1967 by Liberman and colleagues. The basic principle of this model lies with the production of speech sounds in the speaker's vocal tract. The Motor Theory proposes that a listener specifically perceives a speaker's phonetic gestures while they are speaking. A phonetic gesture, for this model, is a representation of the speaker's vocal tract constriction while producing a speech sound. Each phonetic gesture is produced uniquely in the vocal tract. The different places of producing gestures permit the speaker to produce salient phonemes for listeners to perceive. The Motor Theory model functions by using separate embedded models within the main model. It is the interaction of these models that makes Motor Theory possible.

 * Trading Relations - This is the concept that not every phonetic gesture can be directly translated and defined into acoustic terms. This means that there must be another step for interpreting the vocal gestures. Some gestures can be cognitively switched with others to make interpretation simpler. If the produced gesture is similar enough to another gesture that already has a known articulatory cause, they can be switched. The perceived gesture can be traded with the known gesture and interpretation can be achieved.

 * Coarticulation - This is the idea that there is variability in the aspect of gesture production. This concept indicates that there are variations in the area of articulation of vocal gestures produced by speakers. The same gesture may be able to be produced in more than one place. The phonemes within the gestures are obtained and perceived by the ability to compensate for all the variations of speech possible due to coarticulation.

Categorical Perception

Categorical Perception is the concept that phonemes in speech can be divided categorically once they are produced. The main categories that speech can be divided into are places of articulation and voice onset time. Some of the vocal gestures can only occur from a single type of articulation. Other gestures have a variety of coarticulations. This means that the same sound can either be produced at a single place in the vocal tract, or it can be produced from a few different places in the vocal tract .Being able to determine where the sound is being produced will assist in determining which sound has been produced. Some vocal gestures also have different places in time for the voice on-set of the gesture in speech. Different vocal gestures produce their onset of sound at different times, depending on what the sound being produced is. For example, /b/ has a different voice onset than /p/ yet they are produced in the same place in the vocal tract. Knowing when the voice onset is of the sound will help when trying to assess which sound the speaker has produced. Making the distinction between articulation and voice onset enables gestures to be grouped and defined based on the ways they are produced.

Cohort Model
Proposed in the 1980's by Marslen-Wilson, the Cohort-Model is a representation for lexical retrieval. An individual's lexicon is his or her mental dictionary or vocabulary of all the words he or she is familiar with. According to a study, the average individual has a lexicon of about 45,000 to 60,000 words. The premise of the Cohort Model is that a listener maps novel auditory information onto words that already exist in his or her lexicon to interpret the new word. Each part of an auditory utterance can be broken down into segments. The listener pays attention to the individual segments and maps these onto pre-existing words in their lexicon. As more and more segments of the utterance are perceived by the listener, he or she can omit words from their lexicon that do not follow the same pattern.

Example: Grape

1. The listener hears the /gr/ sound and begins thinking about which words he or she has in their lexicon which begin with the /gr/ sound and cancel out all of the others.

2. /gra/ all words following this pattern are thought of, and all the rest are omitted.

3. This patter continues until the listener has run out of speech segments and is left with a single option : Grape

The ideals behind Cohort Model have also recently been applied to technology to make internet searches more convenient and faster. Google has begun using this model to help make searching faster and easier for internet users.

As the first letter is typed into the search bar, Google begins "guessing" what the word is going to be.The guesses are generally based on what the most common searches tend to be, and what makes sense syntactically. As more letters are typed, different options appear in the menu which correspond with the letters typed.

Exemplar Theory
The main premise of the Exemplar theory is very similar to the Cohort Model. Exemplar theory based on the connection between memory and previous experience with words. The Exemplar theory aims to account for the way in which a listener can remember acoustic episodes. An acoustic episode is an experience with spoken words. There has been evidence produced that demonstrates that details relating to specific audible episodes are remembered by the listeners, if the episodes are familiar to the listener. It is believed that listeners may be better at recognizing previously heard words if they are repeated by the same speaker, using the same speaking rate, meaning that the episode is familiar. With the Exemplar theory, it is believed that every word leaves a unique imprint on the listener's memory, and that this imprint is what aids a listener with remembering words. When new words enter the memory, the imprint of the new words are matched to previous ones to determine any similarities. The Exemplar Theory states that as more experience is gained with lexical improvements, new words being learned or heard, the stability of the memory increases. With this lexical plasticity, the Ganong Effect comes into play. The Ganong Effect states that real-world memory traces are able to perceive much more readily than nonsense word memory.

Ganong Effect Example:

 * Soot, Boot, Root will be easier to remember due to similarity in the memory of the listener

 * Snoyb, Bnoyb, and Rnoyb without being similar in the memory of the listener, will be difficult to remember

Neurocomputational Model
Kroger and colleagues (2009) worked on a speech perception model which is based on the neurophysiological and neuropsychological facts about speech. The model they developed simulates what the neural pathways in various areas of the brain are involved in when speech is being produced and perceived. Using this model, brain areas in speech knowledge are obtained by training neural networks to detect speech in the cortical and sub-cortical regions of the brain. Through their research, Kroger and colleagues determined that the neurocomputational model has the capability of embedding in these brain areas important features of speech production and perception to achieve comprehension of speech.

This model differs from previously discussed models on the basis of its role in speech perception. The authors developed their model to demonstrate that speech perception not only involves the perception of spoken language, it also heavily relies on the production of language too. This model greatly reflects the findings of Liberman and associates in their work on the Motor Theory of speech production. Both of these models demonstrate that speech perception is a product of both production of speech and recieving of speech. With the work conducted by Huang and associates, it can be shown that very similar areas in the brain are activated for production along with perception of language. This neurocomputational model is one of the few that adequately map the pathways of both speech functions in the brain.

Dual Stream Model
The Dual Stream Model, proposed by Hickok and Poeppel (2007) demonstrates the presence of two functionally distinct neural networks that process speech and language information. One of the neural networks deals primarily with the sensory and phonological information pertaining to conceptual and semantics. The other network operates with sensory and phonological information pertaining to motor and articulatory systems. In this sense, the Dual Stream Model encompasses the key aspects of speech, production and perception. Despite previous assumptions about the lateralization of the human brain, the Dual Stream Model reverses the conceptions. As previously thought, the left hemisphere of the human brain dealt with only fast temporal information, but as Hickok & Poeppel (2007) demonstrate, this might not necessarily by the case. With the development of the Dual Stream Model, it has been shown that the left hemisphere of the brain is also capable of representing acoustic information as readily as the right hemisphere. Along with changing the way it was thought that the brain dealt with incoming information, the basic concept of the Dual Stream Model is that acoustic information must interfere with conceptual and motor information for the entire message to be perceived. This combining of roles is what makes the Dual Stream Model unique and plausible as a model for speech perception.

Problems with Speech Perception Models
Some of the main issues involved in producing a speech perception model is deciding which method of perception the model is going to adopt. Speech perception is a process which can occur in one of two ways, top-down processing, or bottom-up processing. With top-down processing, listeners perceive the entire word, and break it down into its components to determine its meaning, whereas in bottom-up processing, listeners perceive the individual segments of a word first, and build them together to form and determine meaning. When designing a speech perception model, both of these processes need to be taken into account. The processing direction the model takes will need to depend in which way the researchers believe speech perception occurs.

The TRACE model and the Dual Stream model each employ both the top-down and bottom-up processing as they function. This means that not only do the models explain how word can be built from the phonemes up, they are also capable of explaining how the phonemes are capable of being derived from complete words as well. The TRACE and Dual Stream models are exceptions as most of the speech perception models involve speech perception occurring in only one direction. For instance, Cohort Theory uses strictly bottom-up processing. The method of building upon some segments of a word until the entire word is built is an example of bottom-up processing. Only processing information in one direction is a downfall for a speech perception model.

The Exemplar Theory and Motor Theory each pose a different type of problem for speech perception. Both theories involve operationally defining certain aspects of speech that make the model work. It is in these definitions that errors may arise. In the Exemplar Theory, how can similarity of words be defined adequately when the level of similarity of words will be different for each individual ? Same goes with defining an episode. It is difficult to ensure that listening to someone speak will be the exact same experience for more than one person, and also that it will be the same experience the second time around. With the Motor Theory, how can the gestures made by speakers be defined properly, if each speaker has a unique vocal tract and way of producing sound.

Each model is unique and capable of functioning the way it had been designed to. There are some limitations to each of the models, and there is no perfect model for speech perception. Along with these limitations, that models still work independently and co-dependently of one another. If a perception problem can not be solved using one of the models, there is a strong chance that there is another model that will work.

Conclusion
In conclusion, as shown above, there are many different models which can be used to perceive speech. Each model has its own method of working and usage. It depends on which aspect of speech, or for which purpose, that you would select a particular model to use. TRACE model and the Dual Stream models can both be used if speech is going to be processed from the phonemes upwards to the words, or broken down from the words into the phonemes. This is possible because these two models are the only ones capable of perceiving speech in both directions. The other models mentioned in this chapter have their own significant purpose, and are best used when in that particular circumstance. Speech perception models were designed to help detect and interpret speech for a great number of reasons, namely to help understand what utterances are being produced when it is difficult to distinguish them. These models have also been produced to help computers, microphones, and other electronic devices receive and translate human voices into intelligible messages. Speech perceptions models should be used with the understanding that each one varies from the others, and selecting the appropriate model will happen solve the speech perception problem much easier than if the incorrect model is used.

Learning Activity
Upon reviewing the above material on Models of Speech Perception, answer the following questions to test your knowledge about the models of speech perception. The answers to each of the questions are posted below this section for you to review once you've answered.

Name the Model
For this section, provide the speech perception model that may be described by the following words. There may be one or more answers for some of the questions.

 * 1) lexicon, mapping, segmentation = __________.
 * 2) gestures, coarticulation, trading relations = _________.
 * 3) conceptual/semantics, motor/articulatory, networks = __________.
 * 4) acoustic episode, imprint, Ganong Effect = __________.
 * 5) word, feature, phoneme = __________.
 * 6) places of articulation, voice onset, gestures = _________.
 * 7) neurophysiological, neuropsychological, pathways = __________.

Short Answer
For this section please provide a written answer in the form of a paragraph. Make note of which speech perception model is being utilized, and unless otherwise specified, state what the model(s) is/are.

 * 1) Sally, a undergraduate student is preparing an argument about speech perception models. Her argument must include models that work best at processing words or phonemes in both a top-down and a bottom-up fashion. Which model(s) should Sally use in her argument, and why?
 * 2) You are a tutor for a grade 4 student. The student has been learning spellings, working especially on vowel sounds. You have noticed that the student can easily remember how to pronounce and spell the words read, heal, and veal, however he struggles greatly with the words kead, peaf, and feam. What could be causing a problem for this learner, and which speech perception model does this problem fall under?
 * 3) Joe is a neuroscience student who is very familiar with neural pathways. His professor has asked him to prepare a presentation on speech perception models. The professor is also interested in the pathways involved in speech and would like to see this incorporated into the presentation. Which model could Joe use for this assignment to make his professor happy, and interest himself?

Mini Quiz
Fill in the blanks using the information found above.

 * 1) Coarticulation and __________ are used as two models within the main model for __________.
 * 2) Different vocal gestures have a different __________ for the different sounds they are making.
 * 3) The premise of __________ is that a listener maps novel words onto pre-existing words in his __________ to interpret the new word.
 * 4) The TRACE model is based on the principles of __________ activation.
 * 5) One stream of the Dual stream model deals with _________ and the other stream deals with __________.
 * 6) The Neurocomputational Model is based on _________ and __________ facts about speech.
 * 7) Each phonemic gesture is produced __________ in the vocal tract.
 * 8) The main categories speech can be divided into are __________ and __________.

Learning Activity Answers
Part A

1. Cohort Model

2. Motor Theory

3. Dual Stream

4. Exemplar Theory

5. TRACE

6. Categorical Perception

7. Neurocomputational model

Part B

1. TRACE and Dual Stream

The TRACE model, as well as the Dual Stream model use a top-down and bottom-up process while they are in function. Both of these models function in such a way that they are able to either segment entire words down into their phonemes (top-down) or build words up from their individual phonemes (bottom-up). These are the only two speech perception models with this capability, which makes them capable of handling many speech perception needs. For her argument, Sally should discuss both of these models

2. The 4th grader is struggling with what is known as the Ganong Effect. This means that the first grouping of words is easy for him to remember because they are familiar words which he has probably heard used in conversation before. the second group of words is hard to remember because they are unfamiliar to him, and he has nothing stored in his mental lexicon to map them onto. The Ganong Effect come into play with the Exemplar Theory. This is because the Exemplar Theory works with memory and experience of words. Words that are used in everyday life, or that are familiar will be easier to recall and learn compared to words that aren't.

3. Neurocomputational Model

Joe should use the neurocomputational model for his presentation. This model of speech perception utilizes information based on where in the various brain areas speech is being produced and also perceived. This model works by training specific neural pathways to not only detect speech, but also to produce it. If Joe is interested and knowledgable about the brain and its neural pathways, this model would be ideal for him to present.

Part C

1. trading relations, Motor Theory

2. voice onset time

3. Cohort Model, lexicon

4. interactive

5. conceptual and semantics, motor and articulatory

6. neurophysiological, neuropsychological

7. uniquely

8. place of articulation, voice onset time

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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User talk:Moraghjang

 Hello Moraghjang, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy policy, Civility policy, and the Terms of Use while at Wikiversity.

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User talk:Efesseha

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User talk:Egm6321.f09.mtg37

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User talk:Egm6321.f09.mtg39

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User talk:Egm6321.f09.mtg41

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User:Gme

Giulia Messina Dahlberg
I am a PhD candidate at Örebro University and I start my post in September 2010. I recently became a member of the research group called KKOM-DS (Kommunikation, Kultur och Mångfald – Deaf Studies). Örebro University and Högskolan Dalarna are now collaborating to start a research school “Research Technology-mediated knowledge processes in the university and in professional life” with focus on learning and IT. My doctoral post covers 80% of my position: when I am not studying, I am teaching Italian at Högskolan Dalarna.

I have been working at Högskolan Dalarna as a lecturer in Italian since 2004. The Italian department was the first to offer Internet-based courses in 2001. I have a great deal of experience teaching language by distance, starting with our first meetings in chat-rooms, to different virtual environments using avatars and now Connect. I have always found the synchronous didactic meetings on the Internet challenging: they mean new communication strategies must be used to compensate for the lack of physical presence.

During the last three terms I have also supervised a number of student groups that are taking their first online course in the educational training program at Högskolan Dalarna. I also used to work as a high school teacher in Italian in an upper-secondary school in Falun. Thanks to my job, I have developed a strong interest in didactical issues dealing with online education.

I have been living in Falun, Sweden since 2001, when I first came as an Erasmus student. I did not know a word of Swedish (I had only taken some Danish before leaving Italy, but this did not turn out to be of much use), and my choice of placement came after a talk with a professor at the University of Torino who had visited Dalarna and found it beautiful and suitable for a stay of a term or two: I could practise my English and learn some Swedish at the same time. Therefore, I arrived in Sweden on August 13th, 2001 with a lot of expectations and all of them were met: it really was beautiful in Dalarna and I could improve my English, which made it harder for me to feel motivated to learn any Swedish. But I did learn Swedish eventually, even if it took longer than a term or two. Then I also found a job, my husband, some friends and a life here (not necessarily in that order), and I still live in Falun, Dalarna, Sweden.

Educational background
I took a degree of Master of Arts with a major in English in 2004 and a Master of Education in 2006 at Högskolan Dalarna. I started a language training program Corso di laurea in lingue e letterature straniere at Torino University in 1998, which I followed for three years before leaving to come to Sweden.

Research interest
My research interest is in the area of collaborative learning, computer-based language learning, multimodality, the didactic encounter and dialogue in the virtual classroom.

KOIIA I
I am currently participating in the course Communication and identity issues in institutional arenas I (KOIIA I) at Örebro University. One part of the course will be supported here inside Wikiversity where I will publish my documents, papers and reading logs.

January 25 2011 Theme: course introduction and intersectionality
Reflections on the European Journal of Women’s Studies (2006) Volume 13 (3) s. 187-290, 103 s. Sage Journals]

Reflections on De los Reyes, Paulina & Mulinari, Diana (2005) Intersektionalitet: kritiska reflektioner over (o)jämlikhetens landskap. Malmö: Liber

February 14 2011 Theme: Identities and their enactments in human life
Reflections on Davies, Jonsson and Fishman & Garcia

March 18 2011 Theme: Identities & communities of practice
Reflections on Hornberger and Wenger

April 14 2011 Theme: Theorizing communication, identities & learning
Reflections on Rethinking language, mind and world dialogically - Per Linell, 2009

May 16-17 2011 Theme: Analysis of Linguistic-Landscapes & Discussions about our resources on Wikiversity
Final paper: an introduction

My fellow students at KOIIA I
Annaliina Gynne

Ingela Holmström

Sören Högberg

Contact
Giulia Messina Dahlberg

Högskolan Dalarna

791 88 Falun, Sweden

gme@du.se

+46 (0) 23 77 84 02 +46 (0) 73 639 67 35

title: User:Gme


text:
User talk:Gme

 Hello Gme, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy policy, Civility policy, and the Terms of Use while at Wikiversity.

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And don't forget to explore Wikiversity with the links to your left. Be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage, and see you around Wikiversity! If you're a twitter user, please follow http://twitter.com/Wikiversity. --Draicone (talk) 09:29, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

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text:
User:Rosaprinzessin/vector.css

/* * main-rtl.css is automatically generated using CSSJanus, a python script for * creating RTL versions of otherwise LTR stylesheets. * * You may download the tool to rebuild this stylesheet * http://code.google.com/p/cssjanus/ * * An online version of this tool can be used at: * http://cssjanus.commoner.com/ * * The following command is used to generate the RTL version of this file * ./cssjanus.py --swap_ltr_rtl_in_url < main-ltr.css > main-rtl.css * * Any rules which should not be flipped should be prepended with @noflip in * a comment block. */ /* Framework */ html, body { height: 100%; margin: 0; padding: 0; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 1em; } body { background-color: #000000; background-image: url(images/page-base.png?1); } /* Content */ margin-left: 10em; padding: 1em; background-image: url(images/border.png?1); background-position: top left; background-repeat: repeat-y; background-color: black; color: #bebebe; } /* Head */ height: 5em; background-color: black; background-image: url(images/page-fade.png?1); background-position: bottom left; background-repeat: repeat-x; }	margin-top: -5em; margin-left: 10em; height: 5em; background-image: url(images/border.png?1); background-position: bottom left; background-repeat: repeat-x; } div#mw-head { position: absolute; top: 0; right: 0; width: 100%; } div#mw-head h5 { margin: 0; padding: 0; }	/* Hide empty portlets */ div.emptyPortlet { display: none; }	/* Personal */ #p-personal { position: absolute; top: 0; padding-left: 10em; right: 0.75em; }	#p-personal h5 { display: none; }	#p-personal ul { list-style: none; margin: 0; padding: 0; }	/* @noflip */ #p-personal li { line-height: 1.125em; float: left; }	/* This one flips! */	#p-personal li { margin-left: 0.75em; margin-top: 0.5em; font-size: 0.75em; white-space: nowrap; }	/* Navigation Containers */ #left-navigation { position: absolute; left: 10em; top: 2.5em; }	#right-navigation { float: right; margin-top: 2.5em; }	/* Navigation Labels */ div.vectorTabs h5, div.vectorMenu h5 span { display: none; }	/* Namespaces and Views */ /* @noflip */ div.vectorTabs { float: left; height: 2.5em; }	div.vectorTabs { background-image: url(images/tab-break.png?1); background-position: bottom left; background-repeat: no-repeat; padding-left: 1px; }	/* @noflip */ div.vectorTabs ul { float: left; }	div.vectorTabs ul { height: 100%; list-style: none; margin: 0; padding: 0; }	/* @noflip */ div.vectorTabs ul li { float: left; }	/* OVERRIDDEN BY COMPLIANT BROWSERS */ div.vectorTabs ul li { line-height: 1.125em; display: inline-block; height: 100%; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #101010; background-image: url(images/tab-normal-fade.png?1); background-position: bottom left; background-repeat: repeat-x; white-space:nowrap; }	/* IGNORED BY IE6 */ div.vectorTabs ul > li { display: block; }	div.vectorTabs li.selected { background-image: url(images/tab-current-fade.png?1); }	/* OVERRIDDEN BY COMPLIANT BROWSERS */ div.vectorTabs li a { display: inline-block; height: 2.5em; padding-left: 0.4em; padding-right: 0.4em; background-image: url(images/tab-break.png?1); background-position: bottom right; background-repeat: no-repeat; }	div.vectorTabs li a,	div.vectorTabs li a span { color: #0645ad; cursor: pointer; }	div.vectorTabs li a span { font-size: 0.8em; }	/* IGNORED BY IE6 */ div.vectorTabs li > a { display: block; }	/* OVERRIDDEN BY COMPLIANT BROWSERS */ div.vectorTabs a span { display: inline-block; padding-top: 1.25em; }	/* IGNORED BY IE6 */ /* @noflip */ div.vectorTabs a > span { float: left; display: block; }	div.vectorTabs li.selected a,	div.vectorTabs li.selected a span, div.vectorTabs li.selected a:visited div.vectorTabs li.selected a:visited span { color: #333333; text-decoration: none; }	div.vectorTabs li.new a,	div.vectorTabs li.new a span, div.vectorTabs li.new a:visited, div.vectorTabs li.new a:visited span { color: #a55858; }	/* Variants and Actions */ /* @noflip */ div.vectorMenu { direction: ltr; float: left; background-image: url(images/arrow-down-icon.png?1); background-position: 100% 60%; background-repeat: no-repeat; cursor: pointer; }	/* @noflip */ body.rtl div.vectorMenu { direction: rtl; }	/* OVERRIDDEN BY COMPLIANT BROWSERS */ /* @noflip */ div#mw-head div.vectorMenu h5 { float: left; background-image: url(images/tab-break.png?1); background-repeat: no-repeat; }	/* IGNORED BY IE6 */ div#mw-head div.vectorMenu > h5 { background-image: none; }	div#mw-head div.vectorMenu h5 { background-position: bottom left; margin-left: -1px; }	div#mw-head div.vectorMenu h4 { display: inline-block; float: left; font-size: 0.8em; padding-left: 0.5em; padding-top: 1.375em; font-weight: normal; border: none; }	/* OVERRIDDEN BY COMPLIANT BROWSERS */ /* @noflip */ div.vectorMenu h5 a { display: inline-block; width: 24px; height: 2.5em; text-decoration: none; background-image: url(images/tab-break.png?1); background-repeat: no-repeat; }	div.vectorMenu h5 a{		background-position: bottom right; }	/* IGNORED BY IE6 */ div.vectorMenu h5 > a { display: block; }	div.vectorMenu div.menu { position: relative; display: none; clear: both; text-align: left; }	/* OVERRIDDEN BY COMPLIANT BROWSERS */ /* @noflip */ body.rtl div.vectorMenu div.menu { margin-left: 24px; }	/* IGNORED BY IE6 */ /* @noflip */ body.rtl div.vectorMenu > div.menu { margin-left: auto; }	/* Fixes old versions of FireFox */ /* @noflip */ body.rtl div.vectorMenu > div.menu, x:-moz-any-link { margin-left: 23px; }	div.vectorMenu:hover div.menu { display: block; }	div.vectorMenu ul { position: absolute; background-color: #121212; border: solid 1px silver; border-top-width: 0; list-style: none; list-style-image: none; list-style-type: none; padding: 0; margin: 0; margin-left: -1px; text-align: left; }	/* Fixes old versions of FireFox */ div.vectorMenu ul, x:-moz-any-link { min-width: 5em; }	/* Returns things back to normal in modern versions of FireFox */ div.vectorMenu ul, x:-moz-any-link, x:default { min-width: 0; }	div.vectorMenu li { padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left; line-height: 1em; }	/* OVERRIDDEN BY COMPLIANT BROWSERS */ div.vectorMenu li a { display: inline-block; padding: 0.5em; white-space: nowrap; }	/* IGNORED BY IE6 */ div.vectorMenu li > a { display: block; }	div.vectorMenu li a { color: #0645ad; cursor: pointer; font-size: 0.8em; }	div.vectorMenu li.selected a,	div.vectorMenu li.selected a:visited { color: #333333; text-decoration: none; }	/* Search */ #p-search h5 { display: none; }	/* @noflip */ #p-search { float: left; }	#p-search { margin-right: 0.5em; margin-left: 0.5em; }	#p-search form, #p-search input { margin: 0; margin-top: 0.4em; }	#simpleSearch { margin-top: 0.65em; position: relative; min-height: 1px; /* Gotta trigger hasLayout for IE7 */ border: solid 1px #AAAAAA; background-color: white; background-image: url(images/search-fade.png?1); background-position: top left; background-repeat: repeat-x; }	#simpleSearch label { font-size: 13px; top: 0.25em; }	div#simpleSearch .placeholder { color: #999999; }	div#simpleSearch input::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #999999; }	div#simpleSearch input#searchInput { margin: 0; border-width: 0; padding: 3px; vertical-align: top; font-size: 13px; width: 14em; background-color: transparent; }	/* OVERRIDDEN BY COMPLIANT BROWSERS */ #simpleSearch button#searchButton { padding: 0; margin: 0 5px; border: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: transparent; font-size: x-small; }	div#simpleSearch button#searchButton img { border: none; margin: 0; padding: 0; vertical-align: middle; } /* Panel */ div#mw-panel { position: absolute; top: 160px; padding-top: 1em; width: 10em; left: 0; }	div#mw-panel div.portal { padding-bottom: 1.5em; }	div#mw-panel div.portal h5 { font-weight: normal; color: #444444; padding: 0.25em; padding-top: 0; padding-left: 1.75em; cursor: default; border: none; font-size: 0.75em; }	div#mw-panel div.portal div.body { margin: 0; padding-top: 0.5em; margin-left: 1.25em; background-image: url(images/portal-break.png?1); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: top left; }	div#mw-panel div.portal div.body ul { list-style: none; list-style-image: none; list-style-type: none; padding: 0; margin: 0; }	div#mw-panel div.portal div.body ul li { line-height: 1.125em; padding: 0; padding-bottom: 0.5em; margin: 0; overflow: hidden; font-size: 0.75em; }	div#mw-panel div.portal div.body ul li a { color: #0645ad; }	div#mw-panel div.portal div.body ul li a:visited { color: #0b0080; } /* Footer */ margin-left: 10em; margin-top: 0; padding: 0.75em; background-image: url(images/border.png?1); background-position: top left; background-repeat: repeat-x; }	list-style: none; list-style-image: none; list-style-type: none; margin: 0; padding: 0; }	margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.5em; color: #333333; font-size: 0.7em; }	float: right; } /* @noflip */ body.ltr #footer #footer-places { float: left; }	line-height: 1.4em; }	float: left; margin-left: 0.5em; line-height: 2em; }	float: left; margin-right: 1em; line-height: 2em; } /* Logo */ position: absolute; top: -160px; left: 0; width: 10em; height: 160px; }	display: block; width: 10em; height: 160px; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: center center; text-decoration: none; } /* * * The following code is highly modified from monobook. It would be nice if the * preftoc id was more human readable like preferences-toc for instance, * howerver this would require backporting the other skins. */ /* Preferences */ /* Tabs */ width: 100%; float: left; clear: both; margin: 0 !important; padding: 0 !important; background-image: url(images/preferences-break.png?1); background-position: bottom left; background-repeat: no-repeat; }	#preftoc li { /* Tab */ float: left; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 1px; height: 2.25em; white-space: nowrap; list-style-type: none; list-style-image: none; background-image: url(images/preferences-break.png?1); background-position: bottom right; background-repeat: no-repeat; }	/* IGNORED BY IE6 */ #preftoc li:first-child { margin-left: 1px; }	#preftoc a,	#preftoc a:active { display: inline-block; position: relative; color: #0645ad; padding: 0.5em; text-decoration: none; background-image: none; font-size: 0.9em; }	#preftoc a:hover { text-decoration: underline; }	#preftoc li.selected a { background-image: url(images/preferences-fade.png?1); background-position: bottom; background-repeat: repeat-x; color: #333333; text-decoration: none; }	float: left; width: 100%; margin: 0; margin-top: -2px; clear: both; border: solid 1px #cccccc; background-color: #171717; background-image: url(images/preferences-base.png?1); }	border: none; padding: 0; margin: 1em; }	border: none; border-top: solid 1px #cccccc; }	color: #666666; }	display: none; }	padding-left: 0.5em; padding-right: 0.5em; }	font-size: x-small; padding: .2em 2em; color: #666666; }	padding: 1em; }	margin-right: 0.25em; } /* * Styles for the user login and create account forms */	border: solid 1px #cccccc; padding: 1.2em; margin: .5em; float: left; }	min-width: 20em; max-width: 90%; width: 40em; } /* * * The following code is slightly modified from monobook * */	line-height: 1.5em; }	font-size: 0.8em; } /* Links */ a { text-decoration: none; color: #0645ad; background: none; } a:visited { color: #0b0080; } a:active { color: #faa700; } a:hover { text-decoration: underline; } a.stub { color: #772233; } a.new, #p-personal a.new { color: #ba0000; } a.new:visited, #p-personal a.new:visited { color: #a55858; } /* Inline Elements */ img { border: none; vertical-align: middle; } hr { height: 1px; color: #aaa; background-color: #aaa; border: 0; margin: .2em 0 .2em 0; } /* Structural Elements */ h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 { color: black; background: none; font-weight: normal; margin: 0; padding-top: .5em; padding-bottom: .17em; border-bottom: 1px solid #aaa; width: auto; } h1 { font-size: 188%; } h1 .editsection { font-size: 53%; } h2 { font-size: 150%; } h2 .editsection { font-size: 67%; } h3, h4, h5, h6 { border-bottom: none; font-weight: bold; } h3 { font-size: 132%; } h3 .editsection { font-size: 76%; font-weight: normal; } h4 { font-size: 116%; } h4 .editsection { font-size: 86%; font-weight: normal; } h5 { font-size: 100%; } h5 .editsection { font-weight: normal; } h6 { font-size: 80%; } h6 .editsection { font-size: 125%; font-weight: normal; } p { margin: .4em 0 .5em 0; line-height: 1.5em; }	p img { margin: 0; } abbr, acronym, .explain { border-bottom: 1px dotted black; color: black; background: none; cursor: help; } q { font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-style: italic; } /* Disabled for now blockquote { font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-style: italic; }*/ pre, code, tt { /*	 * It's important for this rule to first reference an actual font name, some browsers will render the monospace text * too small otherwise, namely Firefox, Chrome and Safari */	font-family: monospace, "Courier New"; } code { background-color: #232323; } pre { padding: 1em; border: 1px dashed #2f6fab; color: black; background-color: #1c1c1c; line-height: 1.1em; } ul { line-height: 1.5em; list-style-type: square; margin: .3em 0 0 1.5em; padding: 0; list-style-image: url(images/bullet-icon.png?1); } ol { line-height: 1.5em; margin: .3em 0 0 3.2em; padding: 0; list-style-image: none; } li { margin-bottom: .1em; } dt { font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: .1em; } dl { margin-top: .2em; margin-bottom: .5em; } dd { line-height: 1.5em; margin-left: 2em; margin-bottom: .1em; } /* Tables */ table { font-size: 100%; color: #767676; /* we don't want the bottom borders of s to be visible through * floated tables */ background-color: #000000; } fieldset table { /* but keep table layouts in forms clean... */	background: none; background-color: #000000; } /* Forms */ fieldset { border: 1px solid #2f6fab; margin: 1em 0 1em 0; padding: 0 1em 1em; line-height: 1.5em; }	fieldset.nested { margin: 0 0 0.5em 0; padding: 0 0.5em 0.5em; } legend { padding: .5em; font-size: 95%; } form { border: none; margin: 0; } textarea { width: 100%; padding: .1em; background-color: #000000; } select { vertical-align: top; } /* Table of Contents */ .toc, .mw-warning { border: 1px solid #aaa; background-color: #1f1f1f; padding: 5px; font-size: 95%; } .toc h2 {background-color: #2f2f2f; display: inline; border: none; padding: 0; font-size: 100%; font-weight: bold; } .toc #toctitle, .toc .toctitle { text-align: center; } .toc ul { background-color: #111111; list-style-type: none; list-style-image: none; margin-left: 0; padding-left: 0; text-align: left; } .toc ul ul { background-color: #151515; margin: 0 0 0 2em; } .toc .toctoggle { font-size: 94%; } /* Images */ div.floatright, table.floatright { clear: right; float: right; position: relative; margin: 0 0 .5em .5em; border: 0; } div.floatright p { font-style: italic; } div.floatleft, table.floatleft { float: left; clear: left; position: relative; margin: 0 .5em .5em 0; border: 0; } div.floatleft p { font-style: italic; } /* Thumbnails */ div.thumb { margin-bottom: .5em; border-style: solid; border-color: #d1d1d1; width: auto; background-color: transparent; } div.thumbinner { border: 1px solid #ccc; padding: 3px !important; background-color: #141414; font-size: 94%; text-align: center; overflow: hidden; } html .thumbimage { border: 1px solid #ccc; } html .thumbcaption { border: none; text-align: left; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 3px !important; font-size: 94%; } div.magnify { float: right; border: none !important; background: none !important; } div.magnify a, div.magnify img { display: block; border: none !important; background: none !important; } /* @noflip */ div.tright { clear: right; float: right; border-width: .5em 0 .8em 1.4em; } /* @noflip */ div.tleft { float: left; clear: left; margin-right: .5em; border-width: .5em 1.4em .8em 0; } img.thumbborder { border: 1px solid #dddddd; } .hiddenStructure { display: none; } /* Warning */ .mw-warning { margin-left: 50px; margin-right: 50px; text-align: center; } /* User Message */ .usermessage { background-color: #181818; border: 1px solid #ffa500; color: #e2e2e2; font-weight: bold; margin: 2em 0 1em; padding: .5em 1em; vertical-align: middle; } /* Site Notice (includes notices from CentralNotice extension) */ position: relative; text-align: center; font-size: 0.8em; margin: 0; }	margin-bottom: 0.9em; } /* Categories */ .catlinks { border: 1px solid #aaa; background-color: #262626; padding: 5px; margin-top: 1em; clear: both; } /* Sub-navigation */ display: none; }	display: none; }	font-size: 84%; line-height: 1.2em; margin: 0 0 1.4em 1em; color: #7d7d7d; width: auto; } span.subpages { display: block; } /* Emulate Center */ .center { width: 100%; text-align: center; }	margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; } /* Small for tables and similar */ .small, .small * { font-size: 94%; } table.small { font-size: 100%; } /* Edge Cases for Content */ h1, h2 { margin-bottom: .6em; } h3, h4, h5 { margin-bottom: .3em; }	padding-top: 0; margin-top: 0; padding-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0.1em; line-height: 1.2em; font-size: 1.6em; padding-bottom: 0; }	background: url(images/external-link-ltr-icon.png?2) center right no-repeat; padding: 0 13px 0 0; } .link-https { background: url(images/lock-icon.png?2) center right no-repeat; padding: 0 13px 0 0; } .link-mailto { background: url(images/mail-icon.png?2) center right no-repeat; padding: 0 13px 0 0; }	background: url(images/news-icon.png?2) center right no-repeat; padding: 0 13px 0 0; } .link-ftp { background: url(images/file-icon.png?2) center right no-repeat; padding: 0 13px 0 0; } .link-irc { background: url(images/talk-icon.png?2) center right no-repeat; padding: 0 13px 0 0; } .link-audio { background: url("images/audio-icon.png?2") center right no-repeat; padding: 0 13px 0 0; } .link-video { background: url("images/video-icon.png?2") center right no-repeat; padding: 0 13px 0 0; } .link-document { background: url("images/document-icon.png?2") center right no-repeat; padding: 0 13px 0 0; } /* Interwiki Styling (Disabled) */ color: #36b; background: none; padding: 0; }	color: #36b; }	display: none; } /* Icon for Usernames */ background: url(images/user-icon.png?1) left top no-repeat; padding-left: 15px !important; text-transform: none; } .toccolours { border: 1px solid #aaa; background-color: #161616; padding: 5px; font-size: 95%; }	position: relative; width: 100%; }	font-size: 0.8em; } div#bodyContent { line-height: 1.5em; } /* Watch/Unwatch Icon Styling */ margin-right:1px; }	margin: 0; padding: 0; outline: none; display: block; width: 26px; height: 2.5em; }	background-image: url(images/watch-icons.png?1); background-position: -43px 60%; }	background-image: url(images/watch-icons.png?1); background-position: 5px 60%; }	background-image: url(images/watch-icons.png?1); background-position: -67px 60%; }	background-image: url(images/watch-icons.png?1); background-position: -19px 60%; }	background-image: url(images/watch-icon-loading.gif?1); background-position: center 60%; }	display: none; } div.vectorTabs ul { background-image:url(images/tab-break.png?1); background-position:right bottom; background-repeat:no-repeat; }
 * 1) content {
 * 1) mw-page-base {
 * 1) mw-head-base {
 * 1) footer {
 * 1) footer ul {
 * 1) footer ul li {
 * 1) footer #footer-icons {
 * 1) footer #footer-info li {
 * 1) footer #footer-icons li {
 * 1) footer #footer-places li {
 * 1) p-logo {
 * 1) p-logo a {
 * 1) preftoc {
 * 1) preferences {
 * 1) preferences fieldset.prefsection {
 * 1) preferences fieldset.prefsection fieldset {
 * 1) preferences legend {
 * 1) preferences fieldset.prefsection legend.mainLegend {
 * 1) preferences td {
 * 1) preferences td.htmlform-tip {
 * 1) preferences div.mw-prefs-buttons {
 * 1) preferences div.mw-prefs-buttons input {
 * 1) userlogin, #userloginForm {
 * 1) userlogin {
 * 1) content {
 * 1) bodyContent {
 * toc,
 * 1) toc h2,
 * 1) toc #toctitle,
 * 1) toc .toctitle,
 * 1) toc ul,
 * 1) toc ul ul,
 * 1) toc .toctoggle,
 * 1) siteNotice {
 * 1) localNotice {
 * 1) siteSub {
 * 1) jump-to-nav {
 * 1) contentSub, #contentSub2 {
 * .center * {
 * 1) firstHeading {
 * 1) content a.external,
 * 2) content a[href ^="gopher://"] {
 * 1) content a[href ^="https://"],
 * 1) content a[href ^="mailto:"],
 * 1) content a[href ^="news://"] {
 * 1) content a[href ^="ftp://"],
 * 1) content a[href ^="irc://"],
 * 2) content a.extiw[href ^="irc://"],
 * 1) content a.external[href $=".ogg"], #content a.external[href $=".OGG"],
 * 2) content a.external[href $=".mid"], #content a.external[href $=".MID"],
 * 3) content a.external[href $=".midi"], #content a.external[href $=".MIDI"],
 * 4) content a.external[href $=".mp3"], #content a.external[href $=".MP3"],
 * 5) content a.external[href $=".wav"], #content a.external[href $=".WAV"],
 * 6) content a.external[href $=".wma"], #content a.external[href $=".WMA"],
 * 1) content a.external[href $=".ogm"], #content a.external[href $=".OGM"],
 * 2) content a.external[href $=".avi"], #content a.external[href $=".AVI"],
 * 3) content a.external[href $=".mpeg"], #content a.external[href $=".MPEG"],
 * 4) content a.external[href $=".mpg"], #content a.external[href $=".MPG"],
 * 1) content a.external[href $=".pdf"], #content a.external[href $=".PDF"],
 * 2) content a.external[href *=".pdf#"], #content a.external[href *=".PDF#"],
 * 3) content a.external[href *=".pdf?"], #content a.external[href *=".PDF?"],
 * 1) content a.extiw,
 * 2) content a.extiw:active {
 * 1) content a.external {
 * 1) content .printfooter {
 * 1) pt-userpage,
 * 2) pt-anonuserpage,
 * 3) pt-login {
 * 1) bodyContent {
 * 1) mw-js-message {
 * 1) ca-unwatch.icon,
 * 2) ca-watch.icon {
 * 1) ca-unwatch.icon a,
 * 2) ca-watch.icon a {
 * 1) ca-unwatch.icon a {
 * 1) ca-watch.icon a {
 * 1) ca-unwatch.icon a:hover {
 * 1) ca-watch.icon a:hover {
 * 1) ca-unwatch.icon a.loading,
 * 2) ca-watch.icon a.loading {
 * 1) ca-unwatch.icon a span,
 * 2) ca-watch.icon a span {

title: User:Rosaprinzessin/vector.css


text:
Vehicle-mounted generators

Early motor vehicles until about the 1960s tended to use DC generators with electromechanical regulators. These have now been replaced by alternators with built-in rectifier circuits, which are less costly and lighter for equivalent output. Automotive alternators power the electrical systems on the vehicle and recharge the battery after starting. Rated output will typically be in the range 50-100 A at 12 V, depending on the designed electrical load within the vehicle. Some cars now have electrically-powered steering assistance and air conditioning, which places a high load on the electrical system. Large commercial vehicles are more likely to use 24 V to give sufficient power at the starter motor to turn over a large diesel engine. Vehicle alternators do not use permanent magnets and are typically only 50-60% efficient over a wide speed range. Motorcycle alternators often use permanent magnet stators made with rare earth magnets, since they can be made smaller and lighter than other types. See also hybrid vehicle.

Some of the smallest generators commonly found power bicycle lights. These tend to be 0.5 ampere, permanent-magnet alternators supplying 3-6 W at 6 V or 12 V. Being powered by the rider, efficiency is at a premium, so these may incorporate rare-earth magnets and are designed and manufactured with great precision. Nevertheless, the maximum efficiency is only around 80% for the best of these generators—60% is more typical—due in part to the rolling friction at the tyre–generator interface from poor alignment, the small size of the generator, bearing losses and cheap design. The use of permanent magnets means that efficiency falls even further at high speeds because the magnetic field strength cannot be controlled in any way. Hub generators remedy many of these flaws since they are internal to the bicycle hub and do not require an interface between the generator and tyre. Until recently, these generators have been expensive and hard to find. Major bicycle component manufacturers like Shimano and SRAM have only just entered this market. However, significant gains can be expected in future as cycling becomes more mainstream transportation and LED technology allows brighter lighting at the reduced current these generators are capable of providing.

Sailing yachts may use a water or wind powered generator to trickle-charge the batteries. A small propeller, wind turbine or impeller is connected to a low-power alternator and rectifier to supply currents of up to 12 A at typical cruising speeds.

Engine-generator
In contrast, an engine-generator is the combination of an electrical generator and an engine (prime mover) mounted together to form a single piece of self-contained equipment. The engines used are usually piston engines, but gas turbines can also be used. Many different versions are available - ranging from very small portable petrol powered sets to large turbine installations.

title: Vehicle-mounted generators


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Talk:Mechatronics

hello & Good Evening to all of you?????????..... If we have one lamp some where and we have to operate it from two places,how can we operate it??? can any one show me the circuit diagram of this set up?

 * You need a pair of three-way switches, technically known as single-pole, double-throw switches. —Caprice 11:27, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

title: Talk:Mechatronics