1 The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two (Miller) | Cognitive psychology | 1956 | Working memory taps out around 7 ± 2 chunks of information. | Explains exactly why my brain hard-crashes at the 9th antibiotic renal-dose adjustment of the night. | Every time someone proposes a 14-step med rec process, I want to just slide this paper across the table and walk away. |
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2 The Cocktail Party Problem (Cherry) | Auditory perception | 1953 | How we focus on one voice in a noisy room full of competing talkers. | Feels like a literal description of sign-out on a busy ward plus a brass section warming up in the next room. | Honestly reads like a justification for why paging over overhead speakers should be a controlled substance. |
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3 The Cocktail-Party Problem Revisited (Best et al.) | Psychoacoustics | 2015 | Dissects early processing and selection of speech when multiple people talk at once. | Connects the classic Cherry problem to modern signal-processing and brain-level explanations. | Any paper that can make ‘shadowing tasks’ feel relevant to a trombone section soli gets a permanent spot in my folder. |
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4 What Is the Cocktail Party Problem and Why Should Animal Behaviorists Study It? (Bee & Micheyl) | Animal behavior / auditory ecology | 2008 | Applies the cocktail party idea to how animals communicate in noisy environments. | Suddenly my band rehearsals and a frog chorus at 72 dB A-weighted feel like the same experiment. | Helpful for remembering that humans aren’t the only species yelling over bad room acoustics. |
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5 Interventions for Paracetamol (Acetaminophen) Overdose (Cochrane Review) | Clinical toxicology | 2006 | Systematic look at antidotes for acetaminophen overdose, especially N-acetylcysteine. | This is the paper I mentally flip to every time I see a 300 mg/kg ingestion at 3 a.m. | If my hard drive caught fire, I’d re-download this before my own CV. Priorities. |
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6 Shortened Course Oral N-Acetylcysteine for Acute Acetaminophen Poisoning | Clinical toxicology | 2007 | Shows that shorter oral NAC regimens can still prevent liver failure in selected patients. | Makes me quietly question every default 72-hour order set I see in the EMR. | Peak pharmacist energy is reading this and immediately wanting four new hospital protocols and a QI project. |
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7 Interventions for Paracetamol Overdose: Updated Evidence (Watson et al.) | Evidence-based medicine | 2006 | Synthesizes trial data on NAC timing, route, and alternatives for overdose management. | It’s the meta-view that keeps my inner guideline goblin happy. | If Miller gave us 7 ± 2 items, this paper is the reason half of mine are NAC dosing algorithms. |
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8 University Marching Band Members’ Noise Dosages and Hearing Health-Related Knowledge | Occupational audiology | 2021 | Quantifies noise exposure and hearing-health knowledge in college marching band members. | Seeing trombones sitting at ~90 dBA with 500%+ daily dose feels…personally targeted. | Made me start keeping spare earplugs in my mute bag next to the valve oil and emergency granola bar. |
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9 Evaluation of Sound Exposure and Risk of Hearing Impairment in Orchestral Musicians | Occupational health | 2011 | Measures sound levels and estimates hearing-loss risk across orchestral sections. | Confirms that brass sections really are a long-term project in controlled inner-ear destruction. | Nothing motivates you to keep SPL under 85 dBA like seeing your instrument in the ‘high risk’ column, again. |
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10 The Quantum Cocktail Party Problem | Quantum information / signal processing | 2019 | Translates the cocktail party source-separation problem into a quantum information framework. | Takes a classic psych problem and reimagines it with qubits instead of grad students in headphones. | I do not strictly need quantum mechanics to mix a Malört highball, but it’s fun to pretend I do. |
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