In this study, we investigate the effect of tiny acoustic differences on the efficiency of prosodic information transmission. Study participants listened to textually ambiguous sentences, which could be understood with prosodic cues, such as syllable length and pause length. Sentences were uttered in voices similar to the participant’s own voice and in voices dissimilar to their own voice. The ...

A perception experiment involving 28 German listeners is presented. It investigates – for sequences of request, pause, and affirmative answer – the effect of pause duration on the answerer's perceived willingness to comply with the request. Replicating earlier results on American English, perceived willingness was found to decrease with increasing pause duration, particularly above a "tolerance...

Two components of the RNA polymerase (RNAP) catalytic center, the bridge helix and the trigger loop (TL), have been linked with changes in elongation rate and pausing. Here, single molecule experiments with the WT and two TL-tip mutants of the Escherichia coli enzyme reveal that tip mutations modulate RNAP's pause-free velocity, identifying TL conformational changes as one of two rate-determini...

When ventricular pacemakers are electrically stimulated at a fast rate, the cessation of the drive is followed by a temporary suppression of automaticity ("overdrive suppression"). The role of the sympathetic system in the regulation of this overdrive suppression was studied and the following results obtained: 1) Hypotension induced during overdrive by amyl nitrite inhalation caused a shortenin...

Sequence-specific pausing by RNA polymerase (RNAP) during transcription plays crucial and diverse roles in gene expression. In bacteria, RNA structures are thought to fold within the RNA exit channel of the RNAP and can increase pause lifetimes significantly. The biophysical mechanism of pausing is uncertain. We used single-particle cryo-EM to determine structures of paused complexes, including...

When ventricular pacemakers are electrically stimulated at a fast rate, the cessation of the drive is followed by a temporary suppression of automaticity ("overdrive suppression"). The role of the sympathetic system in the regulation of this overdrive suppression was studied and the following results obtained: 1) Hypotension induced during overdrive by amyl nitrite inhalation caused a shortenin...