Auditory signals

Signaling pheromones are animal-produced, interindividual chemicals that modulate behavior in conspecifics. Like visual and auditory signals, they have comparatively rapid effects exchange of signals takes seconds or minutes. (Priming pheromones [Ch. 8], hy comparison, trigger slower endocrine or developmental processes.) The pheromone concept, originally based on insects (Karlson and Luscher, 1959), has been debated for vertebrates, notably mammals (e.g. Beauchamp etal., 1976 Johnston, 2001). Often it is better to use the term body odors to avoid particular assumptions. Now the term pheromones is widely used for vertebrates, without any particularly narrow definition implied. 

It is clear, however, that melatonin has short-term mental effects. It definitely can cause drowsiness when taken during the day. Melatonin taken at night, however, will not cause daytime sleepiness. People who take melatonin are also less likely to respond correctly to visual and auditory signals. They are more likely to make mistakes and their reaction time decreases when they take this hormone. Several studies have shown that taking melatonin inhibits a person s ability to concentrate and can cause confusion. People should therefore not take it when they need to stay alert, such as when they will be driving a car. The effects begin within... 

Animals are trained to jump to avoid an electric shock prepulsed by an auditory signal. Potency in inhibiting this avoidance relative to chlorpromazine... 

The sensory mode of information provides a way to classify displays. Visual displays are most common, followed by auditory displays and, occasionally, displays for other senses. No matter what sensory mode a display uses, the conditions must allow for effective information transfer. For visual displays there must be sufficient quantity and quality of light to see the displayed information. Auditory signals must be loud enough for an individual to hear. The sound should not compete with other sounds. Surrounding sound should not drown out the display sound. Cell phones can use vibration mode (tactile) as an alternate to audible ring tones. 

Increasingly, automation and electronic equipment will replace or supplement human senses. Examples to date at Lloyd s (1980) recording of temporal data on firefly flashes, the recording of auditory signals (Gaul, 1952 Lane and Rothschild, 1965), or merely the ever increasingly accessibility of computer facilities (now handheld ) to process the statistical data. 

Use auditory signals when a quick response is critical. 

The subsequent movement of the organ of Corti is also critical to auditory signaling because on the ventral side of the organ lie four rows of auditory hair cells. The first three rows of cells are referred to as outer hair cells, while the fourth is comprised of inner hair cells. The hair cells are distributed tonotopically throughout the length of the cochlea that is by selective frequency organization from base to apex. It is because of the specialized structure of the basilar membrane that transduction will only trigger neurotransmission within a circumscribed subpopulation of cells when stimulated by a specific and limited set of frequencies. 

ABSTRACT The purpose of this work is to expand the knowledge of contexts surrounding accidents in occupational situations. Particularly, a theoretical study concerning causes of accidents is conducted. It allowed to differentiate the most often considered aspects such as human and technical. In this paper a special attention was paid to assuring safety by process control in which the contributor is human and his/ her response to system alarms. The study, undertaken in a simulation situation, concerned human reaction to visual and audible signals which had to reflect alarms for process control. The results of the study showed that the visual indicators were more often correctly perceived than that of auditory signal. 

Twenty three second-year students (12 men, 11 women, mean age 19 years) from industrial engineering curricula participated in the experiment during laboratory classes. They were individually tested for about 15 minutes (each person reacted to 50 signals). The task was divided into two parts at first students were trained for 5 minutes how to operate the simulator (MCR-2001E) and then they worked with 3 visual and 1 auditory signals. Their task was to react to the signal according to the previously defined code. In order to analyse the data the mean values were calculated for the simulation situation. 

The German group have used a different measure of reaction time, measured with the Weiner reaction time device. The task is a complex choice reaction time task where children have to respond to a random sequence of visual and auditory signals, by pressing the appropriate buttons. There were no differences detected in the speed of response (measured by the number of late responses), and only small differences in the number of correct responses. The main difference detected was in the number of false responses, and this difference became more marked as the complexity of the task increased. Studies carrying out tests of reaction time after delay have not reported (and indeed have probably not recorded) the numbers of false responses. 

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