ABSTRACT
A consumers' advocate discusses the needs of the consumer in evaluating dental products. Although commending the roles of the FDA and ADA in evaluating products, numerous questions are raised and recommendations made concerning advertising claims.
Subject(s)
Consumer Advocacy , Dental Materials/standards , Pharmaceutical Preparations/standards , Advertising , American Dental Association , Drug Labeling , Ethics , Humans , United States , United States Food and Drug AdministrationABSTRACT
Tape recordings of telephone conversations of Consolidated Edison's system operator (SO) and his immediate superior (CSO), beginning an hour before the 1977 New York blackout, were analyzed for indications of psychological stress. (SO was responsible for monitoring and switching power loads within the Con Ed network.) Utterances from the two individuals were analyzed to yield several pitch and amplitude statistics. To assess the perceptual correlates of stress, four groups of listeners used a seven-point scale to rate the stress of SO and CSO from either randomized vocal utterances or transcripts of the randomized utterances. Results indicated that whereas CSO's vocal pitch increased significantly with increased situational stress, SO's pitch decreased. Listener ratings of stress from the voice were positively related to average pitch. It appears that listener's stereotype of psychological stress includes elevated pitch and amplitude levels, as well as their increased variability.
Subject(s)
Speech Acoustics , Speech , Stress, Psychological/physiopathology , Voice , Cues , Humans , Time FactorsABSTRACT
Two studies on speech samples from 32 male college students are reported. In the first, it was shown that the average voice fundamental frequency of the subjects was higher when lying than when telling the truth. In the second, judges rated the truthfulness of 64 true and false utterances either from an audiotape that had been electronically filtered to render the semantic content unintelligible or from an unfiltered tape. The truthfulness ratings of the judges who heard the content-filtered tape were negatively correlated with fundamental frequency, whereas for the unfiltered condition, truthfulness ratings were uncorrelated with pitch. Although raings made under the two conditions did not differ in overalll accuracy, accuracy differences were found that depended on how an utterance had been elicited originally.
