Evaluations of 3M/House single-channel and nucleus multichannel cochlear implants.

3M/House single-channel (n = 158) and Nucleus multichannel (n = 71) adult cochlear implant users were surveyed about their devices. In comparison to the 3M/House users, the Nucleus users reported better speech and environmental sounds perception and more hours of daily use. However, Nucleus users also were more likely to report that the expense of upkeep and frequent movement of external parts of their implants were problems. On average, users in both groups were satisfied and felt that their implants had positively affected their lifestyle, enjoyment of social events, and employability. Differences between groups regarding these variables were not found. Multiple regression indicated that the users' ratings of the effects of their implants on speech perception, environmental sounds perception, enjoyment of social events, and lifestyle were all statistically significant predictors of satisfaction. It was concluded that the majority of the users in either group thought their devices provided real-world benefits.

Picture memory: recognizing added and deleted details.

When people are presented simple and complex pictures and then tested in a same-changed recognition test with a simple or complex form of each, d' is greater for the simple than the complex picture (Pezdek & Chen, 1982). The results of three experiments confirm the robustness of this "asymmetric confusability effect" and test a model of the processes underlying this effect. According to the model, pictures are schematically encoded such that the memory representation of both simple and complex pictures is similar to the simple form of each. In Experiment 1, a sentence was presented that described the central schema in the picture prior to subjects' viewing each picture. This manipulation exaggerated the asymmetric confusability effect; schematic processing thus underlies the effect. Results of Experiment 2 refute the hypothesis that the effect results from subjects erroneously anticipating a recall test rather than a recognition test. Furthermore, although some of the nonschematic elaborative information in complex pictures is stored in memory, it is difficult to retrieve to verify that something is missing when complex presentation pictures are changed to simple test pictures (Experiment 3). Thus, although people are able to distinguish large sets of old pictures from new distractor pictures, their ability to detect missing elaborative visual details is more limited.