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Language and motor control.

We investigated the possible influence of automatic word reading on processes of visuo-motor transformation. Subjects reached and grasped an object on which the following Italian words were printed: "VICINO" (near) or "LONTAN" (far) on an object either near or far from the agent (experiments 1, 2); PICCOLO (small) or "GRANDE" (large) on either a small or a large object (experiment 4); and "ALTO" (high) or "BASSO" (low) on either a high or a low object (experiment 5). The kinematics of the initial phase of reaching-grasping was affected by the meaning of the printed words. Namely, subjects automatically associated the meaning of the word with the corresponding property of the object and activated a reach and/or a grasp motor program influenced by the word. No effect on initial reach kinematics was observed for words related to object properties not directly involved in reach control (experiment 3). Moreover, in all the experiments, the presented words poorly influenced perceptual judgement of object properties. In experiments 5-7, the effects of the Italian adjectives "ALTO" (high) and "BASSO" (low) on reaching-grasping control were compared with those of the Italian adverbs "SOPRA" (up) and "SOTTO" (down). Adjectives influenced visual analysis of target-object properties, whereas adverbs more directly influenced the control of the action. We suggest that these effects resemble the structure of a sentence, where adjectives are commonly referred to nouns, and adverbs to verbs. In other words, class of words and, in a broad sense, grammar influenced motor control. The results of the present study show that cognitive functions such as language can affect visuo-motor transformation. They are discussed according to the notion that a strict relation between language and motor control exists, and that the frontal cortex can be involved in interactions between automatic word reading and visuo-motor transformation.

Adolescent↗

The effects of "neighborhood size" in reading and lexical decision.

The effects of neighborhood size ("N")--the number of words differing from a target word by exactly 1 letter (i.e., "neighbors")--on word identification was assessed in 3 experiments. In Experiments 1 and 2, the frequency of the highest frequency neighbor was equated, and N had opposite effects in lexical decision and reading. In Experiment 1, a larger N facilitated lexical decision judgments, whereas in Experiment 2, a larger N had an inhibitory effect on reading sentences that contained the words of Experiment 1. Moreover, a significant inhibitory effect in Experiment 2 that was due to a larger N appeared on gaze duration on the target word, and there was no hint of facilitation on the measures of reading that tap the earliest processing of a word. In Experiment 3, the number of higher frequency neighbors was equated for the high-N and low-N words, and a larger N caused target words to be skipped significantly more and produced inhibitory effects later in reading, some of which were plausibly due to misidentification of the target word when skipped. Regression analyses indicated that, in reading, increasing the number of higher frequency neighbors had a clear inhibitory effect on word identification and that increasing the number of lower frequency neighbors may have a weak facilitative effect on word identification.

Decision Making↗

The concept of chronic pathological processes.

The chronic pattern of lesions and the behaviour of each process as a whole, the internal relationships between sequences, the dynamics of factor assemblies determining the sequences and development of lesional chains, the propelling and cohesional factors are analysed in the morphopathogenic modalities of chronic processes, the chronic transformation of acute lesions and the primary chronic processes. This structural analysis lends support to the consideration of chronic pathological processes as systems and their investigation by the methods of the systemic conception applied to pathology. Key words: chronic pathological processes, chronic pattern of lesions, chronic transformation of acute lesions, primary chronic processes, sequential development, assemblies of factors, propelling factors, cohensional factors, proliferative dominance, self-perpetuation and auto-aggression mechanisms, stereotyping of chronic processes, systemic conception.

Animals↗

Actual and possible body-image self-schemas in young women with bulimic tendencies.

To examine whether information about body image is processed and cognitively organized around a self-concept, two experiments analyzed reaction time and memory for 48 young women with bulimic tendencies. Information was self-referencing to body shape vs trait words and information processing of adjectives referenced to "I dream of" and "I am afraid of" facets of self. Bulimic subjects encoded "fat" adjectives faster when these words were referenced to the present self. Reaction times were also faster to both "thin" and "fat" adjectives when these words were self-referenced to an "I dream of" and to an "I am afraid of" self, respectively. Processing of body-image information depended on which facet of self was activated rather than on the denotative meaning of the stimulus words. Memory for thin and fat adjectives was not related to preoccupation with body image or to which facet of the self was invoked. Findings suggest that an actual body-image schema and a possible body-image schema could coexist for bulimic persons. Such coexistence is necessary for a theory which posits knowledge structures might be dynamically related.

Adolescent↗

Lexical access and the brain: anatomical constraints on cognitive models of word recognition.

Recent studies in the cognitive psychology of reading and many other skilled performances have been dominated by models inspired by neural connectivity (e.g., McClelland & Rumelhart, 1986). Such models have not yet begun to consider the accumulating evidence of considerable anatomical localization of component cognitive operations in the human brain (e.g., Posner, Petersen, Fox, & Raichle, 1988). In this article we apply anatomical findings to the job of building computational models of visual word recognition. Brain imaging studies already provide important constraints on how lexical access should be defined in terms of isolable encoding operations that compute the visual form, phonology, and semantics of words. Brain imaging studies also speak to issues of modularity versus interaction between these encoding operations, distribution versus localization of processing within the operations, and orchestration of operations to accomplish different word processing tasks. We conclude that a combined cognitive and anatomical analysis may be of considerable benefit in developing more adequate models of human information processing.

Brain↗

Learning disability subtypes and the role of attention during the naming of pictures and words: an event-related potential analysis.

The role of attention in the processing of pictures and words was investigated for a group of normally achieving children and for groups of learning disability sub-types that were defined by deficient performance on tests of reading and spelling (Group RS) and of arithmetic (Group A). An event-related potential (ERP) recording paradigm was employed in which the children were required to attend to and name either pictures or words that were presented individually or in superimposed picture-word arrays that varied in degree of semantic relation. For Group RS, the ERP waves to words, both presented individually or attended in the superimposed array, exhibited reduced N450 amplitude relative to controls, whereas their ERP waves to pictures were normal. This suggests that the word-naming deficiency for Group RS is not a selective attention deficit but rather a specific linguistic deficit that develops at a later stage of processing. In contrast to Group RS and controls, Group A did not exhibit reliable early frontal negative waves (N280) to the super-imposed pictures and words, an effect that may reflect a selective attention deficit for these children that develops at an early stage of visuo-spatial processing. These early processing differences were also evident in smaller amplitude N450 waves for Group A when naming either pictures or words in the superimposed arrays.

Attention↗

Eye movements and the modulation of parafoveal processing by foveal processing difficulty: A reexamination.

Henderson and Ferreira (1990) found that foveal load (manipulated via word frequency) modulates parafoveal processing, thereby affecting the amount of preview benefit obtained from the word to the right of fixation. The present experiment used the eye-contingent boundary paradigm and, consistent with Henderson and Ferreira, showed that foveal load modulated preview benefit for participants who were not aware of the display changes during reading. Also, for these participants, foveal load modulated preview benefit regardless of fixation durations on the foveal word. For participants who were aware of the display change, preview benefits occurred regardless of foveal processing difficulty. These results have important implications for understanding the way in which foveal load influences parafoveal processing during reading.

Eye Movements↗

Lexical processing during saccadic eye movements.

Three experiments examined whether processes devoted to word recognition and word identification are suppressed during saccades, as most eye movement and reading researchers implicitly assume. In the first two experiments, subjects made short or long saccades while performing lexical decisions; lexical decision latency and accuracy were unaffected by saccade distance, and post-saccadic processing time was reduced when a long as opposed to a short saccade was made. Experiment 3 showed that word identification is more accurate when a long as opposed to a short saccade separates the presentation of a word and the presentation of a mask. These results demonstrate that lexical processing is not suppressed during saccades, so saccade durations should be taken into account in eye movement studies of reading. The implications of the results for current theories of cognitive suppression during saccades are discussed.

Humans↗

Mechanisms of recovery from aphasia: evidence from positron emission tomography studies.

OBJECTIVES: Language functions comprise a distributed neural system, largely lateralised to the left cerebral hemisphere. Late recovery from aphasia after a focal lesion, other than by behavioural strategies, has been attributed to one of two changes at a systems level: a laterality shift, with mirror region cortex in the contralateral cortex assuming the function(s) of the damaged region; or a partial lesion effect, with recovery of perilesional tissue to support impaired language functions. Functional neuroimaging with PET allows direct observations of brain functions at systems level. This study used PET to compare regional brain activations in response to a word retrieval task in normal subjects and in aphasic patients who had shown at least some recovery and were able to attempt the task. Emphasis has been placed on single subject analysis of the results as there is no reason to assume that the mechanisms of recovery are necessarily uniform among aphasic patients. METHODS: Six right handed aphasic patients, each with a left cerebral hemispheric lesion (five strokes and one glioma), were studied. Criteria for inclusion were symptomatic or formal test evidence of at least some recovery and an ability to attempt word retrieval in response to heard word cues. Each patient underwent 12 PET scans using oxygen-15 labelled water (H2(15)O) as tracer to index regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF). The task, repeated six times, required the patient to think of verbs appropriate to different lists of heard noun cues. The six scans obtained during word retrieval were contrasted with six made while the subject was "at rest". The patients' individual results were compared with those of nine right handed normal volunteers undergoing the same activation study. The data were analysed using statistical parametric mapping (SPM96, Wellcome Department of Cognitive Neurology, London, UK). RESULTS: Perception of the noun cues would be expected to result in bilateral dorsolateral temporal cortical activations, but as the rate of presentation was only four per minute the auditory perceptual activations were not evident in all people. Anterior cingulate, medial premotor (supplementary speech area) and dorsolateral frontal activations were evident in all normal subjects and patients. There were limited right dorsolateral frontal activations in three of the six patients, but a similar pattern was also found in four of the nine normal subjects. In the left inferolateral temporal cortex, activation was found for the normal subjects and five of the six patients, including two of the three subjects with lesions involving the left temporal lobe. The only patient who showed subthreshold activation in the left inferolateral temporal activation had a very high error rate when performing the verb retrieval task. CONCLUSIONS: The normal subjects showed a left lateralised inferolateral temporal activation, reflecting retrieval of words appropriate in meaning to the cue from the semantic system. Lateralisation of frontal activations to the left was only relative, with right prefrontal involvement in half of the normal subjects. Frontal activations are associated with parallel psychological processes involved in word retrieval, including task initiation, short term (working) memory for the cue and responses, and prearticulatory processes (even though no overt articulation was required). There was little evidence of a laterality shift of word retrieval functions to the right temporal lobe after a left hemispheric lesion. In particular, left inferolateral temporal activation was seen in all patients except one, and he proved to be very inefficient at the task. The results provide indirect evidence that even limited salvage of peri-infarct tissue with acute stroke treatments will have an important impact on the rehabilitation of cognitive functions.

Adult↗

Modulation of event-related potentials by word repetition: the effects of inter-item lag.

The modulation of event-related potentials by word repetition was investigated in two experiments. In both experiments, subjects responded to occasional nonwords interspersed among a series of words. A proportion of the words were repetitions of previously presented items. Words were repeated after 0 or 6 intervening items in Experiment 1 and after 6 or 19 items in Experiment 2. Event-related potentials to repeated words were characterised by a sustained, widespread positive-going shift with an onset of approximately 300 ms. This effect did not vary significantly as a function of lag in either experiment. When words were repeated immediately, this repetition-evoked positive shift was preceded by a transient negative deflection (onset ca. 200 ms) which was absent in event-related potentials to words repeated at longer lags. These results suggest that the modulation of event-related potentials by word repetition is influenced by at least two processes. One of these processes acts relatively early during the processing of a repeated word, but subsides rapidly as inter-item lag between first and second presentations increases. The second process occurs later in time, but is considerably more robust over variations in inter-item lag.

Adult↗

The relation of phoneme discrimination, lexical access, and short-term memory: A case study and interactive activation account.

A brain-damaged patient (AP) is reported who had a strong tendency to identify nonwords as words on auditory lexical decision and to lexicalize nonwords in repetition, yet who showed a normal ability to perceive individual phonemes. It was initially hypothesized that these findings could be accounted for in terms of disrupted lexical phonological representations. This hypothesis was rejected on the basis of an interactive activation model of word recognition which revealed that modifications at the lexical level did not mimic the patient's pattern of results. Instead, it was found that increasing the rate of decay of activation at the phoneme level produced output that was consistent with the phoneme discrimination, lexical decision, and repetition results. This hypothesis of increased phoneme level decay led to the prediction that speech discrimination would decline with increased interstimulus interval and that short-term memory performance would be impaired. Both predictions were confirmed. The results of this study provide support for an interactive activation model of word recognition with feedback from the lexical to the phonemic level and for a close connection between the processes involved in word recognition and short-term memory.

Aphasia↗

Perceptual implicit memory requires attentional encoding.

Perceptual implicit memory for previously attended and unattended words was measured either in a word-stem completion task or in a perceptual fluency (perceptual identification) task. Subjects (N = 144) first engaged in a focused attention task in which they were to identify one of two words presented for 100, 200, or 300 msec. Words were classified as attended if they were reported during the focused attention task and unattended if they were not. Results for both implicit memory tests indicated reliable perceptual implicit memory for attended words but not for unattended words, regardless of focused attention exposure duration. The results indicate that perceptual implicit memory tasks reflect attentional encoding processes; that is, words must undergo attentional encoding if they are to affect performance on a later perceptual implicit memory test.

Attention↗

[Cast partial restorations: outdated!].

The decision to apply a certain therapy is the outcome of a process in which the advantages and disadvantages of this therapy are weighed and compared to alternative therapies. Key words in this process are effectiveness and efficiency. Comparison of inlays and onlays with direct resin composite restorations in terms of effectiveness and efficiency suggests that inlays and onlays are more effective (more durable) than direct resin composite restorations. In contrast, resin composite restorations require fewer resources and thus may be more efficient. However the value of a therapy is not only determined by quantitative measures. It is suggested that appropriateness and adequacy of a therapy should be considered as well. If restorative treatment using cast partial restorations is compared with a treatment using direct resin composite restorations, the latter is considered more appropriate because of its conservative approach. Both types of restorations are considered adequate in terms of protecting the tooth and restoring its function.

Biocompatible Materials↗

Enhanced mismatch negativity brain response after binaural word presentation.

Abstract An oddball paradigm was used to investigate brain processes elicited by spoken words and pseudowords played monaurally, to the left or right ear, or simultaneously to both ears of human subjects instructed to ignore acoustic stimuli but watch a silent video film. The mismatch negativity (MMN), a neurophysiological index of the automatic activation of cortical memory traces, was calculated as the difference between the event-related potential elicited by an infrequent deviant stimulus and the event-related potential to the same item presented as a frequent standard stimulus. Consistent with earlier reports, the MMN to words was larger than that to pseudowords, possibly reflecting the existence of memory traces for spoken words. Bilateral redundant stimulus presentation led to a further increase of the MMN to words relative to both unilateral stimulation modes. This bilateral redundancy gain was absent for pseudowords. We interpret the neurophysiological manifestation of a word-specific bilateral redundancy gain as evidence for interhemispheric cooperation in the automatic access to memory traces for spoken words. Accordingly, word-related cortical networks distributed over both hemispheres allow summation of neural activity between and within hemispheres, thereby potentiating the word-related MMN.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

Brain activation during automatic and controlled processing of semantic relations: a priming experiment using lexical-decision.

Semantic relations may be studied using the experimental technique known as semantic priming, in which a word 'primes' the processing of a related target (e.g. lion-tiger), following a short delay. Priming may be automatic or, with longer delays, under more controlled processing. This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the cerebral activation during two lexical-decision semantic priming experiments, with a short and long delay, representing automatic and controlled processing, respectively. A further two un-primed lexical-decision tasks were performed to distinguish cerebral activation specific to semantic priming itself from those utilised during lexical-decision processes. Distinct regions of anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) were critical to automatic and controlled semantic priming, whilst the putamen and hippocampal complex responded differently to unrelated and semantically related prime-target pairs. Lexical-decision alone revealed activation in posterior temporal cortex especially on the left, in agreement with previous neuroimaging studies. The results provide a plausible neural substrate for common semantic relations independent of task demands and further emphasise the regional functional specialisation of the ACC.

Adult↗

Silicate enhanced enzymatic dehairing: a new lime-sulfide-free process for cowhides.

A conventional dehairing process with sodium sulfide and lime is a major source of the pollution from the tanning industry. In other words, conventional dehairing processes degrade the hair to the extent that it cannot be recovered; thus, these processes become a major contributor to wastewater pollution. In this study, an attempt has been made to develop a lime and sulfide-free dehairing process using a commercial enzyme formulation with the activation of a silicate salt. A dip and pile method of application has been standardized. The amount of enzyme and sodium metasilicate has also been optimized based on complete removal of hair. Enhancement of enzyme activity by the addition of silicate has been demonstrated through activity measurements. Hair removal is found to be complete using scanning electron microscope analysis. Strength and bulk properties of the experimental leathers are comparable to that of control leathers. The process enjoys a significant reduction in chemical oxygen demand (COD) and total solids (TS) by 53 and 26%, respectively. More importantly, the application of enzyme for dehairing results in an 8% area increase in the final leather. Also, the process is proven to be techno-economically feasible.

Animals↗

The time it takes elderly and young individuals to draw pictures and write words.

Twenty elderly and 20 young Ss drew pictures or wrote words for picture or word stimuli. Elderly Ss had slower response initiation than young Ss, especially when drawing. Beyond this, both age groups processed picture and word stimuli similarly. Elderly and young Ss exhibited equivalent latency increases for cross-modality trials (e.g., draw a picture given a word) over within-modality trials (e.g., draw a picture given a picture), regardless of stimulus or task modality. Strong support was found for a mathematical model of these results, which assumes age-related additive slowing for input and output subprocesses but age invariance for a cross-modality transfer subprocess. However, regressing elderly on young whole-condition latencies indicated general, multiplicative slowing: a discrepancy that questions the utility of the global Brinley plot procedure in revealing the nature of age-related slowing.

Adolescent↗

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