Search PubMed⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

E Bates

Publications and source records attributed to E Bates.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources
PubMed1987

Accessibility of case and gender contrasts for agent--object assignment in Broca's aphasics and fluent anomics.

Yugoslav agrammatic Broca's aphasics, fluent anomics, and control subjects were tested for comprehension of agent-object relations in a series of simple Serbo-Croatian sentences in the conversational past tense, consisting of two nouns and a transitive action verb. The availability of two closed class cues--case contrasts and gender contrasts--as well as the availability of an open class lexical cue--animacy contrasts--was varied across sentences. An analysis of subjects' agent-object assignments yielded the following results: Both Broca's aphasics and fluent anomics showed a selective impairment in sensitivity to closed class morphology, although anomics were considerably less impaired than Broca's aphasics. This finding was interpreted as evidence for a non-syndrome-dependent vulnerability of abilities to process closed class morphology for comprehension. In addition, the pattern of agent-object assignments for Broca's aphasics revealed that the degree to which they were able to access the two closed class cues depended on a convergence of the various cues to agent-object relations. In particular, a convergence of case and gender contrasts had an interactive effect on Broca's responses: Gender agreement cues were accessed only in the presence of convergent case contrasts. Conversely, sensitivity to case contrasts was dramatically heightened in the presence of convergent gender contrasts. These results were consistent with a view that the two cues function as intrasentential "primes" or "retrieval cues" for one another.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

Comprehension in aphasia: a cross-linguistic study.

Broca's aphasics and normal controls were tested to determine relative sparing and impairment of word order, grammatical morphology, and semantic information in a sentence interpretation task. Patients were native speakers of English, German, or Italian, languages that vary drastically in the "cue validity" or information value of these three sources of information. Word order was selectively spared while grammatical morphology was selectively impaired in all three languages. Nevertheless, language-specific patterns of sentence interpretation remained in Broca's aphasics, even within the impaired morphological component, supporting an interpretation in terms of "accessing" rather than a "loss." Testing with Wernicke's aphasics, anomics, and some additional age-matched controls suggested that the selective vulnerability of morphology is not specific to agrammatic patients, at least in this paradigm.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1987

Grammatical morphology in aphasia: evidence from three languages.

Aspects of grammatical morphology in Broca's and Wernicke's aphasia were elicited under controlled conditions in three language groups: English, Italian and German. Results suggest that the agrammatism/paragrammatism distinction does not work well for richly-inflected languages. Language-specific ratios of closed class morphology were preserved even among non-fluent patients, with significantly more morphology produced by German and Italian patients. German and Italian patients were also much more likely to furnish the article before nouns--despite or perhaps because of the fact that articles are more complex and informative in those languages. Although patients assigned the correct article most of the time, there were a significant number of article errors (i.e. paragrammatic substitution). Error analyses showed that substitutions are not random, reflecting difficulty in access rather than loss. Substitutions were more common in German, where the complex case and gender markings on the article increase the probability of error. Within each language, error patterns were quite similar for Broca's and Wernicke's aphasics. However, at a detailed level patient group differences in error production were detected. German Broca's aphasics tend to avoid difficult case forms by substituting a simpler, less-marked morphosyntactic frame. Wernicke's aphasics try instead to produce the more marked, oblique constructions, resulting in a less conservative error pattern.

Animals↗
PubMed1987

Ergometer modification for combined arm-leg use by lower extremity amputees in cardiovascular testing and training.

A commercial arm-leg ergometer was adapted so that combined bilateral arm-single leg work could be performed by unilateral lower extremity amputees from their own wheelchairs. Three middle-aged to elderly unilateral amputees performed progressive discontinuous bilateral arm crank and combined bilateral arm-single leg cycle exercise tests on the same air-braked ergometer adapted for either form of ergometry. Select amputees may achieve greater peak oxygen uptakes (VO2), power outputs (PO), and heart rates (HR) during combined bilateral arm-single leg cycle testing versus bilateral arm crank testing. Following 14 weeks of combined arm-leg training on the modified ergometer, a 73-year-old above-knee amputee demonstrated peak VO2 and PO increases of 25% (+3.8 mL X kg-1 X min-1) and 33% (+25W) respectively. Combined arm-leg ergometry as described herein may activate the largest available muscle mass and elicit the greatest oxygen uptake during exercise testing. In addition this exercise modality may simultaneously condition the arms and leg, providing functional gains in both wheelchair propulsion and prosthetic ambulation.

Amputees↗
PubMed1984

A cross-linguistic study of the development of sentence interpretation strategies.

Studies of the development of sentence comprehension strategies in English have indicated that, at first, children tend to rely on pragmatic and semantic strategies, whereas, later on, they rely primarily on word order to determine the basic grammatical relations. However, before making strong conclusions regarding the role of semantics in comprehension, it is necessary to distinguish between (1) extragrammatical knowledge of world events and (2) abstract semantic distinctions that may be an integral part of the parsing process. An earlier study of American and Italian adults indicated that use of such abstract semantic strategies may be a core strategy for parsing in Italian. In the present study, we compared sentence interpretation in American and Italian children between the ages of 2 and 5. From the earliest stages, children showed sensitivity to the relative information value of the various cues in their native language; Italians relied primarily on semantic cues, whereas American children relied on word order. In general, the data did not support claims regarding the existence of universal hypotheses about language structure. There was also evidence that the failure of these young children to make full use of certain interpretive cues resulted from their inability to appreciate the discourse functions of these cues.

Child Development↗