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PubMed2003

Distinct serial position profiles and neuropsychological measures differentiate late life depression from normal aging and Alzheimer's disease.

Geriatric depression is associated with cognitive deficits that share similar features with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and normal aging. This study examined cognitive profiles and serial position effects in patients with geriatric depression (N=20) or AD (N=32) and in elderly controls (N=18). Groups were compared on two measures of serial position of the California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT), scaled scores and regional scores. Newly devised regional scores measure the percentage of items recalled as a function of the possible number of items presented from three regions of the list. Regional scores significantly differentiated depressed from control groups, with reduction of recalled items from the middle region. Scaled scores distinguished the depression from the AD groups on primacy and recency regions, with the characteristic recency effect seen in the AD group. Deficits in regional scores of the middle region are discussed in the context of lower resources in depression.

Aged↗
PubMed2004

Obesity enhances verbal memory in postmenopausal women with Down syndrome.

Several lines of evidence suggest that the loss of estrogen after menopause may play a role in cognitive declines associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD). In postmenopausal women, the principal source of estrogen is estrone, which is influenced by body mass index (BMI). Increased BMI in postmenopausal women is associated with higher levels of serum estradiol and estrone. We hypothesized that obesity could have a beneficial effect on cognition with advancing age. We compared the performance of healthy nondemented obese and non-obese women with Down syndrome (DS) on a broad spectrum of cognitive tests. Estrone levels were 66.9% higher in obese than in non-obese postmenopausal women, and 136% higher in obese than in non-obese premenopausal women. Obese postmenopausal women performed significantly better than non-obese women on measures of verbal memory and on an omnibus test of neuropsychological function, but did not differ significantly in verbal fluency, language, praxis or visuospatial functioning. Among premenopausal women, there was no difference in cognitive function between obese and non-obese women. Our results support the hypothesis that higher endogenous estrogen levels after menopause are associated with better performance on verbal memory.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Lexical decision of nonwords and pseudowords in humans: a positron emission tomography study.

In this functional positron emission tomography study brain activations during an auditory lexical decision task with two experimental conditions were investigated. First, the subjects had to discriminate between real words and nonwords; second, real words varied with pseudowords. Comparing each of these tasks to an auditory control condition we found bilateral activation of the superior temporal and inferior frontal gyrus, lateralized to the left in the pseudoword condition. The comparison of the lexical decision tasks revealed higher rCBF during the pseudo-/real word decisions within BA 47, adjacent to Broca's area, and the anterior cingulate. The data support the notion that the lexical decision during a nonword task is mainly based on a phonological discrimination process, whereas a pseudoword task more strongly requires lexical access resulting in activation of BA 47.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed2000

Physician expressions of uncertainty during patient encounters.

Uncertainty is inherent in clinical medicine and may contribute to variability in physician practice patterns, patient satisfaction, and exchange of information. However, research on physician disclosure of uncertainty to patients is sparse. We measured the frequency of physician expressions of uncertainty to patients using audiotapes of visits to 43 physicians by 216 continuity patients in a university-affiliated general medicine clinic. We also analyzed the audiotapes using Roter Interaction Analysis. Physicians completed Gerrity's Physician's Reaction to Uncertainty scale and patients completed the Kranz Health Opinion Survey and a standardized satisfaction questionnaire. Physicians made verbal expressions of uncertainty in 71% of clinic visits. Physicians with greater self-rated reluctance to disclose uncertainty to patients made fewer expressions. Physicians who made more uncertainty expressions also used more positive talk and partnership building, and gave more information to patients. Physicians also expressed more uncertainty to patients with more education, greater desire for information, and more questions. Physician uncertainty expression were associated with greater patient satisfaction, but not independently of other physician verbal behaviors that were also associated with satisfaction.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Acquisition and transfer of sentence construction in autistic students: analysis by computer-based teaching.

In this study, we examined the conditions necessary to construct appropriate sentences in three autistic students using computer-based training and testing procedure. In Experiment 1, when a picture was presented on the computer display as a sample stimulus, the student was required to construct an appropriate sentence with five words. After training with three stimuli, each student could construct the correct sentence for 24 untrained stimuli. Appropriate vocal responses also emerged. In Experiment 2, the appropriate use of particles, which specify the subject and the object, was acquired by particle choice or sentence construction training. The rule was transferred to untrained stimuli and writing response. These results are discussed in terms of applicability of computer-based training for establishing appropriate sequential responding and particle usage in autistic students.

Autistic Disorder↗
PubMed1988

Self-reported alcohol expectancies for self and other as a function of behavior type and dosage set.

The hypothesis that expectancies about alcohol's effects on behavior vary as a function of behavior type and dosage set was tested in two self-report studies. In Study 1, 85 male and 88 female college students estimated how a moderate versus high dosage of alcohol would affect three social and three nonsocial behaviors selected from Southwick, Steele, Marlatt, and Lindell's (1981) alcohol expectancy questionnaire. In Study 2, 61 male and 113 female college students estimated how alcohol would affect the same behaviors, but they estimated the effects on another person (male or female) rather than on themselves. Results from both studies indicated that subjects expected a moderate dose of alcohol to have greater effects on social than nonsocial behavior, and they expected a high dose to have greater effects on nonsocial than social behavior. Gender also influenced the expected strength of alcohol effects.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Impairment of verbal memory and learning in antipsychotic-naïve patients with first-episode schizophrenia.

BACKGROUND: Verbal memory deficits are of interest in schizophrenia because of the potential relationship to functional and anatomic mesial temporal lobe pathology in this disorder. The goal of this study was to characterize the nature of verbal memory impairments in antipsychotic-naïve schizophrenic patients early in the course of illness. METHODS: Neuroleptic-naïve patients with schizophrenia (n=62) and healthy individuals (n=67), matched on IQ, age, sex, and parental socioeconomic status, were administered the California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT). RESULTS: Schizophrenia participants performed significantly worse than healthy individuals on measures of verbal learning, short- and long-term memory, and immediate attention. Deficits in recall were related to reduced use of organizational strategies to facilitate verbal encoding and retrieval. No group differences were found in rate of forgetting or susceptibility to proactive or retroactive interference. Memory deficits had minimal relation to positive or negative symptom severity. CONCLUSIONS: Schizophrenia is characterized by significant verbal memory dysfunction early in the course of illness prior to treatment with antipsychotic medications. Deficits in consistency of learning over several trials, as well as a strong relationship between semantic organizational strategies and reduced learning capacity, implicate prefrontal dysfunction as a contributor to verbal memory deficits in schizophrenia.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Cognitive function in idiopathic generalized epilepsy of childhood.

This study evaluated the cognitive profiles of children with idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGE), uniformly treated with valproic acid with well-controlled seizures. Twenty-four were neuropsychologically evaluated. They comprised: 14 females, 10 males: 12 with generalized tonic-clonic seizures (GTCS), mean age 14y 4mo, SD ly 7mo, range 12y to 16y 4 mo; 12 with absence seizures (AS]) mean age 14y 5mo, SD ly 10mo, range 11y to 16y 4mo, with intellectual abilities within the normal range and age-appropriate scholastic skills, and 20 healthy controls (12 females, 8 males; mean age 14y 5mo, SD 1y 10mo, range 10y 7mo to 16y 7mo). As a group, children with IGE performed significantly poorer in all tests (non-verbal and verbal attention, verbal learning and memory, word fluency, and controlled sequential fine motor responses) excluding non-verbal memory. Analysis according to type of seizure revealed that both patient groups (AS and GTCS) had an attention deficit, whereas only children with AS showed deficits in verbal learning and memory, word fluency, and controlled fine motor responses. These results suggest a long-term risk of learning impairment for children with IGE, even if they have normal intelligence and their seizures are well controlled.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1976

A survey of social inadequacy among psychiatric outpatients.

An investigation into the extent and nature of social inadequacy among outpatients diagnosed as neuroses and personality disorders was undertaken on patients aged 18-49 attending one clinic over a six-month period. A feature of this survey was that each patient took part in a standard social interaction test, and their performance was assessed by two psychologists. A relatively high proportion of patients, one in six on the most conservative estimate, and probably over one in four, were judged by psychologists and psychiatrists to be socially inadequate, and the results showed a clear pattern of behavioural, social and personality factors associated with these judgements. Implications for assessment and treatment are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2003

Précis of Foundations of language: brain, meaning, grammar, evolution.

The goal of this study is to reintegrate the theory of generative grammar into the cognitive sciences. Generative grammar was right to focus on the child's acquisition of language as its central problem, leading to the hypothesis of an innate Universal Grammar. However, generative grammar was mistaken in assuming that the syntactic component is the sole course of combinatoriality, and that everything else is "interpretive." The proper approach is a parallel architecture, in which phonology, syntax, and semantics are autonomous generative systems linked by interface components. The parallel architecture leads to an integration within linguistics, and to a far better integration with the rest of cognitive neuroscience. It fits naturally into the larger architecture of the mind/brain and permits a properly mentalistic theory of semantics. It results in a view of linguistic performance in which the rules of grammar are directly involved in processing. Finally, it leads to a natural account of the incremental evolution of the language capacity.

Biological Evolution↗
PubMed2001

Filler syllables: what is their status in emerging grammar?

Although it has long been observed that some children incorporate unglossable syllables into their early utterances, it has been difficult to integrate these 'fillers' into theories of language acquisition. Because they straddle boundaries between phonology and morphosyntax, and between pragmatics and lexicon, they do not fit neatly into linguists' notions about 'modules' of language. Fillers have been reported in quite an array of languages, and yet they seem to be more common among learners of some languages than others. Even when language is held constant, children seem to vary immensely as to whether they produce fillers at all. With more researchers reporting fillers in more languages, it seems time to (1) review what we now know about fillers; (2) propose a reasonably unified set of criteria for identifying them; and (3) suggest an approach that will promote their further study.

Child Language↗
PubMed2001

Mixing and pragmatic parental strategies in early bilingual acquisition.

This paper investigates the relationship between a child's degree of bilingualism and features of parental input. It seeks to demonstrate that parental discourse strategies have a direct bearing on the levels of mixing present in the child's utterances in his weaker language, English. It is based on the longitudinal study of a Catalan/English bilingual child from 1;3 to 4;2 years old. The strategies adopted by both parents in response to their child's mixing are examined following Lanza's (1992, 1997) categorization of parental discourse strategies. Whereas the Catalan-speaking mother negotiates a bilingual context of interaction with her son, as of the child's third year, the English-speaking father endeavours to impose a monolingual context. Such a change of strategy clearly favours the child's increasing use of the minority language, which entails a sharp decline in rates of mixing. It appears that parents' pragmatic choices may have an impact on the development of productive family bilingualism.

Child, Preschool↗
PubMed2001

The acquisition of control crosslinguistically: structural and lexical factors in learning to licence PRO.

Rules for interpreting empty category (EC) subjects of complement clauses vary crosslinguistically across structural and lexical dimensions. In adult Greek, a distinction is made between the verbs meaning WANT and TRY, the former but not the latter permitting the EC subject of its subjunctive complement to refer outside the sentence. The EC is pro for WANT and PRO for TRY. In adult Spanish, both the verbs meaning WANT and TRY require the EC subject (pro) to refer outside when the complement is in the subjunctive, and require the EC subject (PRO) to refer to the main clause subject when the complement is in the infinitive. Twenty-three Greek-speaking four- to five-year-olds and 10 adults, 29 Spanish-speaking four- to five-year-olds, 18 six- to seven-year-olds and eight adults took part in act-out experiments. The results indicate an awareness of language-particular distinctions governing the interpretation of EC complement subjects. However, child speakers of both languages experience difficulty in giving sentence external reference, leading to error in the case of subjunctive sentences for Spanish-speaking children. We argue that the data overall is most compatible with children having access to the empty category PRO by age four, and that failure to give external reference of an EC when required can plausibly be treated as performance error. A picture verification task produced less clear results, but points to the need for data from younger children to establish whether there is an early stage in which lexical semantics dominates children's interpretation of ECs.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

Development of sentence interpretation strategies by typically developing and late-talking toddlers.

Three studies, designed to examine use of word order and animacy for interpretation of sentences by 21 typically-developing two-year-old, 23 typically-developing two-and-one-half-year-old, 16 typically-developing three-year-old, 17 language-delayed two-and-one-half-year-old and 19 language-delayed three-year-old children were carried out. Results indicated that typically-developing two-year olds used neither cue consistently to interpret sentences. Typically-developing two-and-one-half-year olds, on the other hand used a coalition of word order and animacy cues and language-delayed two-and-one-half-year olds used neither cue. At three years of age both groups of children used word order exclusively to interpret sentences.

Child Language↗