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Biomedical subjects

E Koff

Publications and source records attributed to E Koff.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
PubMed1984

The Target Test: a brief laterality measure of speed and accuracy.

This paper describes a performance measure of lateral dominance, the Target Tests, which provides separate assessments of manual speed and accuracy within a relatively simple paper-and-pencil format. The Target Tests were administered to 111 normal adults, and scores were examined with respect to handedness, familial left-handedness, and sex. The tests significantly differentiated between right- and left-handers. Target scores were substantially correlated with the Harris Tests of Lateral Dominance, suggesting adequate reliability and validity. The means, standard deviations, and ranges for the preferred and nonpreferred hands for both handedness groups were nearly identical. The Target Tests provide a convenient instrument for assessing motoric lateralization of speed and accuracy in clinical and research settings.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

A left hemispace bias for visualizing emotional situations.

Forty-three college-aged subjects posed a series of emotional facial expressions and described their strategies for creating such expressions. The majority of subjects (86%) reported visualizing an image or situation. When asked for the location of the image, the majority (62%) indicated the left hemispace, and only 5% indicated the right.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

Facial asymmetry in posed and spontaneous expressions of emotion.

Patterns of facial asymmetry (i.e., extent of movement) as a function of elicitation condition, emotional valence, and sex of subjects are examined. Thirty-seven right-handed adult males and females were videotaped making positive and negative expressions of emotion under posed (verbal, visual) and spontaneous conditions. There were no differences in facial asymmetry as a function of condition. Overall, expressions were significantly left-sided, a finding implicating the right hemisphere. When sex and valence were considered, negative expressions were left-sided for all subjects, while positive expressions were left-sided for males only. Further, positive expressions were significantly less lateralized than negative ones for females. Measures of hemiface mobility and ocular dominance did not mediate these patterns of facial lateralization.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

Hemiface mobility and facial expression asymmetry.

Thirty-seven right-handed college-aged males and females were assessed for facial asymmetry during emotional expression and for nonemotional hemiface mobility. Objective, subjective, and undirected measures of facial mobility were obtained, separately for the upper and lower face. While judges rated mobility of the lower face as left-sided, subjects declared themselves to be as facile on the right as on the left side of the face. When asked to move a side of the lower face, subjects moved the right side more frequently than the left. For the upper face, none of the measures of mobility were significantly left- or right-sided. Facial expression asymmetries (which were observed to be left-sided) were not significantly related to any measures of hemiface mobility.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

CT scan cerebral hemispheric asymmetry measurements in stroke cases with global aphasia: atypical asymmetries associated with improved recovery.

This study was undertaken in order to examine the relationship between CT scan hemispheric asymmetries and recovery in aphasia. The study had two parts. In Part I, hemispheric asymmetries were measured on the CT scans of 60 right-handed male non-aphasic (non-neurological) controls and 89 right-handed male aphasics, using a modification of LeMay's (1977) techniques. Both the non-aphasic control and aphasic data were in agreement with that of LeMay for frontal width, occipital width and occipital length. In Part II, the degree of CT scan hemispheric asymmetry was quantified for 14 right-handed male global aphasics, in whom differences in degree of language recovery were observed in the months following stroke. Atypical occipital asymmetries were significantly associated with certain aspects of language recovery (naming, single-word comprehension and single-word repetition). The authors postulate that increased capacity for right hemisphere contribution to language function might in part explain recovery in the cases exhibiting atypical occipital CT asymmetries.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

Asymmetries in body part size, mobility, and usage. Relationship between structure and function.

Asymmetries in structure (size) and function (usage or mobility) for the upper and lower face, hands, and feet were investigated in 42 left- and right-handed male and female college students. Size measurements were taken from photographs, mobility was rated from videotapes, and usage was assessed by questionnaire. Size asymmetries were typical, and independent of handedness, but were not consistent across body parts; usage asymmetries varied as a function of handedness. No systematic relationships were found between structure and function.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1983

Is there a bias in size measurements taken from mirror-reversed photographs of body parts?

This study compared measurements of hands, feet, and hemifaces taken from original and mirror-reversed photographs to determine whether a hemispace-bias exists in size measurements. Posers were adult right- and left-handers (50% female). In 80% of the measurement comparisons (total N = 84), there was complete agreement; there were no instances of right-left reversals among the discrepant comparisons. The side of the body measured as larger was independent of the side of space in which it appeared. The lack of such bias in physical measurements is discrepant with data suggesting a left-hemispace preference in psychological judgments of visual material.

Adult↗
PubMed1982

Memories of menarche: age, preparation, and prior knowledge as determinants of initial menstrual experience.

The relationships between age at menarche, preparation for menarche, and initial experience of menarche, were assessed in a retrospective questionnaire administered to 97 college aged women. The more knowledgeable a girl was prior to menarche, the more adequate she perceived her preparation for menarche to have been; and the older she was at the time of menarche, the more likely she was to report a positive initial experience. These data support clinical anecdotes describing initial responses to menarche, and provide information about the factors which can moderate the extent to which menarche is experienced as a traumatic and disruptive event.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1982

Gender, anxiety, and human figure drawings.

Male and female human figure drawings (HFDs) produced by 340 males and females, from ages 9 yrs. 7 mos. to 22 yrs. 4 mos., and deriving from a normal population, were scored for anxiety related to aggression-hostility (A-H) and insecurity-lability (I-L). In general, male subjects evidenced more anxiety about A-H than females; additionally, both male and female subjects drew male figures with more A-H anxiety indices than female figures. The results are interpreted in terms of the impact of sex-role socialization. Further, the utility of obtaining HFDs of both sexes in personality assessment is noted.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1981

Asymmetry of facial expression related to handedness, footedness, and eyedness: a quantitative study.

This study investigates the relationship between traditional measures of lateral dominance and facial asymmetry or facedness, i.e., the relative intensity of expression "and muscular involvement" on the two sides of the face. Subjects were 19 left-handed and 29 right-handed normal adults coached to produce eight facial expressions of emotion and one expression involving unilateral facial movement. Videotapes of each subject were reliably rated for facedness. A lateral dominance battery yielded preference scores for hand, foot, and eye, and performance scores for accuracy, speed, and strength. Facedness and lateral dominance scores were intercorrelated. For all subjects, facedness for the eight emotional expressions was positively related to eyedness, but unrelated to handedness or footedness. Facial asymmetry during emotional expression was more intense on the left side of the lower face and may be a right hemisphere function, regardless of handedness. The one expression requiring deliberate unilateral facial movement was significantly and inversely related to handedness and footedness.

Adult↗
PubMed1981

Sexual ambiguity in children's human figure drawings.

Four hundred sixty-one children in grades 5-9 drew a person and indicated the sex of their human figure drawing. A significant number (8%) of children were unable to classify their drawings as to sex; the frequency of uncertainty did not vary with grade or sex of child. Inability to determine the sex of one's own drawing is hypothesized to be a conceptual rather than a perceptual problem, and to reflect uncertainty about the essence of sexual identification.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1979

Intelligence and phenylketonuria: effects of diet termination.

Trends in intellectual functioning before and after diet termination were examined in 30 children with PKU treated before 6 weeks of age and on a liberal diet for a mean of three years since the mean age of 59 months. Comparisons of trends in pre- and posttermination IQ scores with the linear spline technique revealed no significant differences. Comparisons of pretermination IQ scores with posttermination scores and scores from the most recent evaluation also yielded no significant differences. These data fail to support a relationship between termination of diet and impairment of intellectual functioning, at least during this period of observation.

Adolescent↗