ReuseUnless indicated otherwise, fulltext items are protected by copyright with all rights reserved. The copyright exception in section 29 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 allows the making of a single copy solely for the purpose of non-commercial research or private study within the limits of fair dealing. The publisher or other rights-holder may allow further reproduction and re-use of this version -refer to the White Rose Research Online record for this item. Where records identify the publisher as the copyright holder, users can verify any specific terms of use on the publisher's website. TakedownIf you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing eprints@whiterose.ac.uk including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. Viewing images of terrorism can have a powerful impact on individuals' emotional and political responses, yet little is known about the psychological processes underlying these effects. We hypothesized that the content of terrorism images will shape viewers' appraisals of the event, which will elicit specific emotions and political attitudes. Acts of terrorism deliver political messages in a dramatic fashion-a goal that is increasingly facilitated in the era of 24-hour news reporting. In an era of saturation coverage in the print, television, and Internet media, people around the world are regularly exposed to graphic images of terrorist acts. As a result, even those who are far removed from the physical sites of terrorism can experience the powerful impact of these attacks.Individuals who do not directly witness a terrorist attack tend to rely on the media to provide information about such events (Chermak & Gruenwald, 2006;Nacos, 2003 Images are capable of communicating the details of an event in succinct and captivating ways, so much so that they have been termed "visual quotations" (Sontag, 2003). A photograph is especially likely to communicate a particular frame or perspective, as any twodimensional still image is constrained in its ability to represent the individuals and objects The Impact of Media Coverage on Viewers' Understandings of TerrorismThe different terrorism frames that are presented in the media have the capacity to shape the parameters of public debate (see Picard, 1993). For instance, news coverage can bestow legitimacy upon a particular view and ensure widespread dissemination of its ideas; such publicity and status then serves to attract additional support and resources to its cause (Chermak & Gruenewald, 2006;Weimann & Winn, 1994). Given the broad reach of the media, various theoretical accounts propose that media reports should influence the viewing public's views towards the event in question (e.g., Deprez & Raeymaeckers, 2010;McLaughlin & Baker, 2010). Research has shown that exposure to media coverage of terrorism increases anxiety and fear (Gadarian, 2010;Slone, 2000), and that these emotions at least partly determine viewers' attitudes toward terrorism (Gadarian, 20...

Background noise produces complaints among hearing-aid users, however speech-perception-in-noise does not predict hearing-aid use. It is possible that hearing-aid users are complaining about the presence of background noise and not about speech perception. To test this possibility, acceptance of background noise is being investigated as a predictor of hearing-aid use. Acceptance of background noise is determined by having subjects select their most comfortable listening level (MCL) for a story. Next, speech-babble is added and the subjects select the maximum background noise level (BNL) which is acceptable while listening to and following the story. The difference between the MCL and the BNL is the acceptable noise level (ANL), all in dB. ANLs are being compared with hearing-aid use, subjective impressions of benefit (APHAB), speech perception in background noise (SPIN) scores, and audiometric data. Individuals who accept higher levels of background noise are more successful users than individuals who accept less background noise. Mean ANLs are 7.3 dB for full-time users (N=21), 12.6 dB for part-time users (N=44), and 13.8 dB for rejecters (N=17). ANLs are not related to APHAB, SPIN, or audiometric data. Results for about 120 subjects will be reported. [Work supported by NIDCD (NIH) RO1 DC 05018.]

Our objective is to examine the relation between central auditory processes and discrimination of speech (consonant–vowel) and nonspeech (frequency glide) stimuli. Behavioral responses and auditory evoked potentials (MMN and P300) of ten adults were evaluated to synthetically generated consonant–vowel (CV) speech and nonspeech contrasts. The CVs were two within-category stimuli and the nonspeech stimuli were two frequency glides whose frequencies matched the formant transitions of the CV stimuli. It was found that listeners exhibited significantly better behavioral discrimination to the nonspeech versus speech stimuli in same/different and oddball behavioral paradigms. MMN responses were present in all subjects to both stimulus contrasts, and were not significantly different with regard to stimulus type. P300’s were present in nine of ten subjects to both stimulus contrasts. However, the CV speech contrasts produced P300’s with significantly smaller amplitudes and longer latencies than those to the nonspeech stimuli. These results suggest that the stimuli were processed differently when measured behaviorally and with the P300, but not when measuring the MMN. The enhanced discrimination of the frequency glide stimuli versus the CV stimuli of analogous acoustical content supports the idea that different levels of processing mediate the auditory perception of speech versus nonspeech stimuli.