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The aim of the study was to explore if recall of words and recognition of sentences orally presented was affected by a background noise. A further aim was to investigate the role of working memory capacity in performance in these conditions. Thirty-two subjects performed a word recall and a sentence recognition test. They repeated each word to ensure that they had heard them. A reading span test measured their working memory capacity. Performance on the word recall task was impaired by the background noise. A high reading span score was associated with a smaller noise effect, especially on recall of the last part of the word list.The effects of noise on memory, learning and other cognitive functions have been widely researched (see e.g. reviews by Jones, 1990 andSmith, 1989). With few exceptions this research has used written texts or other visual material. Very little has been done concerning cognitive effects of noise on speech communication, except for studies on speech intelligibility, usually expressed as a percentage of words or sentences correctly identified by a listener (for a review see e.g. Kryter, 1994). The obvious reason for using text based tasks in studies of other cognitive functions is that impaired performance in noise could otherwise be an effect of noise making it impossible to hear parts of what is said. However, efficient speech communication requires further processing and it seems likely that noise may affect speech communication even when the noise allows identification of the words spoken. In addition to identifying the words spoken the listener must be able to integrate the current information with information that has recently been processed as well as with stored information. Furthermore, to be able to use the information it must be transferred to a more permanent store. Processing speech in unfavourable listening conditions, for example, with a high background noise, may require a listener to consider more alternative interpretations of the speech stimuli and speech understanding may rely more on stored information for successful performance than in good listening conditions. The perceptual coding of the speech signal, which in good listening conditions is largely automatic, becomes more of a controlled resource-demanding process. Under such conditions the identification of the spoken words thus places higher demands on the limited cognitive processing resources. If so, a background noise could leave fewer resources for the further processing of the speech. Understanding and memory of spoken information then may be impaired by the unfavourable listening conditions even APPLIED COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

Union density remains very high in Sweden. The significantly raised fees for union unemployment funds in January 2007 were followed by an unprecedented decline in the number of union members in modern Swedish history. In the course of two years union density dropped by 6 percentage points: from 77% in 2006 to 71% in 2008. As a result, the density of employers' associations today is much higher than union density. The article below describes and analyzes union decline among different groups of workers and why it was not difficult to foresee this development when the center-right government sharply raised membership contributions to finance the state-subsidized Swedish unemployment insurance. From July 2008 the government more closely linked fund fees to the unemployment rate for each fund, thus differentiating fund fees between different groups of employees. Since the subsequent economic crisis hit private sector blue-collar workers harder than other employees, the differentiation of fees was further widened. As a consequence, total union fees (including fund fees) also varied more by time and between different categories of workers, which in turn was reflected in the development of union density. From 2006 to 2010 blue-collar density fell by 8 percentage points compared to the 4-point decline among white-collar workers. In contrast to the depression of the 1990s, union density did not increase when unemployment increased rapidly from 2008 to 2009. The article also discusses why the government failed to achieve its main goal of changing the financing system of unemployment insurance: to influence wage formation.

A reaction time (RT) task of short duration, characterized by a high signal rate (16 signals/minute) was used to examine if 1 night of sleep deprivation (SD) in interaction with task duration did transfer and/or change the RT distribution. Eight 5s participated on two occasions: after SD and after normal sleep. From a significant interaction between SD and task duration for 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles, it was concluded that there was a general increase in RT. Strengthening of the interaction for the 75th percentile values and significantly more blockings for the last minutes in SD also did confirm an increased skewness found by other researchers. Since these effects are a function of interaction, it is suggested that one of the effects of SD can be an accentuation of the decrement found in vigilance.