Graphic test as a method for estimation of testator's psycho-physical condition.
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Adult↗
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Subcortical stroke presenting as micrographia.
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Antihypertensive Agents↗
The handedness of Leonardo da Vinci: a tale of the complexities of lateralisation.
The handedness of Leonardo da Vinci is controversial. Although there is little doubt that many of his well-attributed drawings were drawn with the left hand, the hatch marks of the shading going downwards from left to right, it is not clear that he was a natural left-hander, there being some suggestion that he may have become left-handed as the result of an injury to his right hand in early adulthood. Leonardo's lateralisation may be illuminated by an obscure passage in his notebooks in which he describes crouching down to look into a dark cave, putting his left hand on his knee, and shading his eyes with his right hand. We carried out a questionnaire survey, using 33 written and photographic items, to find whether this behaviour was typical of right handers or left handers. In fact the 'Leonardo task' showed almost no direct association with handedness, meaning that it contributes little to the immediate problem of elucidating Leonardo's handedness. However, the lateralisation of the task did relate to other aspects of behavioural laterality in surprisingly complex ways. This suggests that individual differences in handedness, and behavioural laterality in general, have a structural complexity which is not fully encompassed by simple measures of direction or degree of handedness.
Adult↗
Sparing of written production of proper nouns and dates in aphasia.
Aphasia is a total or partial loss of the ability to produce or understand language, usually caused by brain disease or injury. In this case study, the aphasic patient (BMW) has a profound impairment of oral production and a very moderate impairment in comprehension. Several years of informal observation lead to the current study that contrasts written naming of common nouns to written naming of proper nouns and dates. BMW named professional ice hockey players, team logos, and provided birthdays of players with near perfect accuracy and normal rates of production. In contrast, his performance on naming common nouns was only 50% accurate and appeared very laborious. The results of this study thus show a clear preservation of date and proper noun production in contrast to common nouns.
Adult↗
Dysgraphia in two forms of conduction aphasia.
Recent clinical observations, in the absence of experimental data, appear to suggest that written expression in conduction aphasics parallels their speech (Goodglass, 1992). The current study undertakes an analysis of word level writing in two conduction aphasics, and attempts to explore the posited 'parallel' relationship between speech production deficits and deficits in written expression. JL, a 66-year-old female with left posterior parietal lobe lesion and PP, a 65-year-old female with a left posterior temporo-parietal lobe lesion served as subjects of this study. Their response patterns on Boston Naming Test (BNT) and written naming task (John Hopkins Dysgraphia Battery) were utilized to verify the parallel hypothesis. Although both cases have exhibited phonological and semantic paraphasias on BNT, PP's overall performance was far superior to that of JL. JL produced numerous multiple responses to stimuli compared to PP's occasional multiple responses. PP's performance on the written naming task was far inferior to that of JL. JL's predominant error pattern in writing was the production of phonologically similar words to the target words. This paper argues that such seemingly contradictory, unpredicted patterns can be parsimoniously better explained, not by the parallel hypothesis but by current cognitive-neuropsychological models of writing.
Aged↗
Pure misallocation of "0" in number transcoding: a new symptom of right cerebral dysfunction.
To account for the mechanism of number transcoding, many authors have proposed various models, for example, semantic-abstract model, lexical-semantic model, triple-code model, and so on. However, almost all of them are based on the symptoms of patients with left cerebral damage. Previously, I reported two Japanese patients with right posterior cerebral infarction showing pure misallocation of "0" (omission: "40,265"-->"4,265," addition: "107"-->"1,007," transposition: "4,072"-->"4,702") both in writing and oral reading of Arabic numerals. To examine whether the pure misallocation of "0" is commonly observed in patients with right cerebral damage, I investigated writing and oral reading of Arabic numerals in 18 patients with right cerebral damage and 16 healthy controls. All patients with right cerebral damage showed pure misallocation of "0" both in writing and reading. The pure misallocation of "0" due to right cerebral damage cannot be explained by current models. It may be more useful to explain the phenomenon by regarding an Arabic numeral as graph on a two-dimensional plane composed of two axes (place-holding values and digits).
Aged↗
Hand preference for writing and associations with selected demographic and behavioral variables in 255,100 subjects: the BBC internet study.
In an Internet study unrelated to handedness, 134,317 female and 120,783 male participants answered a graded question as to which hand they preferred for writing. This allowed determination of hand preference patterns across 7 ethnic groups. Sex differences in left-handedness were found in 4 ethnic groups, favoring males, while no significant sex differences were found in three of the groups. Prevalence of left-handedness in the largest of the ethnic groups (self-labelled as "White") was comparable to contemporary hand preference data for this group [Gilbert, A. N., & Wysocki, C. J. (1992). Hand preference and age in the United states. Neuropsychologia, 30, 601-608] but the prevalence of left-handedness in individuals >70 years of age was considerably higher in the present study. Individuals who indicated "either" hand for writing preference had significantly lower spatial performance (mental rotation task) and significantly higher prevalence of hyperactivity, dyslexia, asthma than individuals who had clear left or right hand preferences, in support of Crow et al. [Crow, T., Crow, L., Done, D., & Leask, S. (1998). Relative hand skill predicts academic ability: global deficits at the point of hemispheric indecision. Neuropsychologia, 36, 1275-1282]. Similarly, an association of writing hand preference and non-heterosexual orientation was clearest for individuals with "either" writing hand responses. We conclude that contradictions in the literature as to whether or not these variables are linked to handedness stem largely from different definitions of hand preference. Due to a lack of statistical power in most studies in the literature, the "either" hand writing preference group that yielded the most salient results in this study is not normally available for analysis.
Adolescent↗
Detection of sound rise time by adults with dyslexia.
Low sensitivity to amplitude modulated (AM) sounds is reported to be associated with dyslexia. An important aspect of amplitude modulation cycles are the rise and fall times within the sound. In this study, simplified stimuli equivalent to just one cycle were used and sensitivity to varying rise times was explored. Adult participants with dyslexia or compensated dyslexia and a control group performed a detection task with sound pairs of different rise times. Results showed that the participants with dyslexia differed from the control group in rise time detection and a correlation was found between rise time detection and reading and phonological skills. A subgroup of participants with lower sensitivity to rise time detection characterized by low accuracy in syllable-level phonological skills was found within the dyslexic group. Short stimuli containing only one rise time produced associations with phonological skills and reading, even in a language where the perception of rise time contrasts are not crucial for the signaling of phonemic contrast.
Acoustic Stimulation↗
A structural account of phonological paraphasias.
The aim of this study is to develop a partial theory of phonological paraphasias which has some cross-syndrome and cross-linguistic validity. It is based on the distinction between content and structural units and emphasizes the role of the latter. The notion of structure holds the key to an understanding of the differences among the following three types of data: slips of the tongue, slips of the pen (defined as errors committed by healthy, competent adults), and paraphasias. A comparison of these three data types reveals that slips of the pen and paraphasias display striking similarities whereas slips of the tongue stand apart. This pattern emerges very clearly in an analysis of nine empirical effects all of which are found to be of a structural nature. On the basis of these results, it is argued that both the written output of normals and the oral output of aphasics are generated under a reduced structural representation (i.e., weak activation of structural nodes). However, the reasons for the diminished sensitivity to structure are not the same in the two modalities. While the impoverished structural representation is a likely consequence of the relatively slow production rate in writing, it may stem from an impaired transmission of activation among structural nodes in aphasia. By contrast, the normal speaking process occurs under the sway of a full-fledged structural representation. Hence, slips of the tongue are highly sensitive to structural effects.
Aphasia↗
Mental representation of prepositional compounds: evidence from Italian agrammatic patients.
The processing of Prepositional compounds (typical Neo-latin noun--noun modifications where a head noun is modified by a prepositional phrase, e.g., mulino a vento, windmill) was preliminarily studied with a group of six agrammatic aphasic patients, and, in more detail, with a further agrammatic patient (MB). Omission was the most frequent error type in naming, whereas in the other tasks (repetition, reading, writing, and completion) errors were mostly substitutions of the target preposition. This happened even with fully lexicalized compound forms, i.e., those forms where the linking preposition is syntactically and semantically opaque. These findings are interpreted in terms of a dual-route theory of lexical access to morphologically complex words.
Adolescent↗
A structural account of phonological paraphasias.
The aim of this study is to develop a partial theory of phonological paraphasias which has some cross-syndrome and cross-linguistic validity. It is based on the distinction between content and structural units and emphasizes the role of the latter. The notion of structure holds the key to an understanding of the differences among the following three types of data: slips of the tongue, slips of the pen (defined as errors committed by healthy, competent adults), and paraphasias. A comparison of these three data types reveals that slips of the pen and paraphasias display striking similarities whereas slips of the tongue stand apart. This pattern emerges very clearly in an analysis of nine empirical effects all of which are found to be of a structural nature. On the basis of these results, it is argued that both the written output of normals and the oral output of aphasics are generated under a reduced structural representation (i.e., weak activation of structural nodes). However, the reasons for the diminished sensitivity to structure are not the same in the two modalities. While the impoverished structural representation is a likely consequence of the relatively slow production rate in writing, it may stem from an impaired transmission of activation among structural nodes in aphasia. By contrast, the normal speaking process occurs under the sway of a full-fledged structural representation. Hence, slips of the tongue are highly sensitive to structural effects.
Aphasia↗
Hemispheric differences in processing handwritten cursive.
Hemispheric asymmetry was examined for native English speakers identifying consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) non-words presented in standard printed form, in standard handwritten cursive form or in handwritten cursive with the letters separated by small gaps. For all three conditions, fewer errors occurred when stimuli were presented to the right visual field/left hemisphere (RVF/LH) than to the left visual field/right hemisphere (LVF/RH) and qualitative error patterns indicated that the last letter was missed more often than the first letter on LVF/RH trials but not on RVF/LH trials. Despite this overall similarity, the RVF/LH advantage was smaller for both types of cursive stimuli than for printed stimuli. In addition, the difference between first-letter and last-letter errors was smaller for handwritten cursive than for printed text, especially on LVF/RH trials. These results suggest a greater contribution of the right hemisphere to the identification of handwritten cursive, which is likely related visual complexity and to qualitative differences in the processing of cursive versus print.
Adult↗
Hemispheric asymmetries in font-specific and abstractive priming of written personal names: Evidence from event-related brain potentials.
We assessed hemispheric differences in font-specific and abstractive repetition priming for famous persons' names. Participants performed speeded familiarity judgments for foveally presented famous and unfamiliar names. Famous target names were preceded by primes (150 ms) in the left or right visual field (LVF or RVF). Primes were either the same name as the target written in the same font (font-specific priming), the same name in a different font (abstractive priming), or a different name (unprimed condition). In reaction times, LH superiority was strong for abstractive priming across fonts, but was reduced to insignificance for font-specific priming. We observed 3 different ERP modulations of priming for target names: a small font-specific posterior N200 (160-220 ms), a left temporal N250r (220-300 ms), and an N400 modulation (300-500 ms). The left temporal N250r exhibited large and abstractive priming for RVF primes, but smaller and font-specific priming for LVF primes. N400 effects were observed in all priming conditions. With respect to previous findings that N200, N250r, and N400 reflect facilitation at the levels of font-specific encoding, lexical entries for names, and semantic processing, respectively, these findings suggest that the LH superiority for name processing is particularly pronounced for the access to abstractive lexical entries for written names, a process that may be mediated by the left fusiform cortex.
Adolescent↗
Data quality aspects of a database for abdominal septic shock patients.
Since many years, medical researchers have investigated the mechanisms that may cause a septic shock. Despite many approaches that analyzed smaller parts of the relevant data or single variables, respectively, no larger database with all the possible relevant data existed. Our work was to bridge this gap. We built a large database for abdominal septic shock patients. While building it, we were confronted with many problems concerning the database realization and the data quality. Thus, we will demonstrate how we built our database and how we assured data quality. This is of interest for all medical or computer scientists who are concerned with building medical databases with retrospective data, e.g. for data mining purposes.
Abdomen↗
Bayesian analysis of fingerprint, face and signature evidences with automatic biometric systems.
The Bayesian approach provides a unified and logical framework for the analysis of evidence and to provide results in the form of likelihood ratios (LR) from the forensic laboratory to court. In this contribution we want to clarify how the biometric scientist or laboratory can adapt their conventional biometric systems or technologies to work according to this Bayesian approach. Forensic systems providing their results in the form of LR will be assessed through Tippett plots, which give a clear representation of the LR-based performance both for targets (the suspect is the author/source of the test pattern) and non-targets. However, the computation procedures of the LR values, especially with biometric evidences, are still an open issue. Reliable estimation techniques showing good generalization properties for the estimation of the between- and within-source variabilities of the test pattern are required, as variance restriction techniques in the within-source density estimation to stand for the variability of the source with the course of time. Fingerprint, face and on-line signature recognition systems will be adapted to work according to this Bayesian approach showing both the likelihood ratios range in each application and the adequacy of these biometric techniques to the daily forensic work.
Bayes Theorem↗
An unusual case of thermal injuries with a hot glue gun. Deliberate self-harm or maltreatment?
Assessing injuries in forensic medicine casework, examiners are often confronted with the question of self-infliction versus third parties' influence, respectively, deliberate self-harm versus maltreatment. We report the case of a 40-year-old male who presented with numerous partially healed thermal injuries of different age. These burns were shaped like capital letters and little circles, which were arranged in lines in a regular form. The lesions were found on the whole body with exclusion of face, genitals, hands and feet. Furthermore, four bitemarks at the right shoulder were noted. Investigations revealed that the man had been abused by his 25-year-old wife (presumably a borderline personality disorder patient) for at least 1 year. In addition to another series of abuses, the woman may have inflicted the shaped burns with a hot glue gun as punishment for breaking certain "rules" she had established. When assessing injuries of patients in forensic medicine, several considerations regarding etiology have to be taken into account. In principle, the victim's testimony, the anamnesis, the police investigation results and the findings from the forensic physical examination have to be balanced against each other. The injury pattern in the present case showed contradictory single characteristics both of deliberate self-harm and of maltreatment. After forensic analysis, it was assessed as injuries inflicted by an assistant with the patient's consent.
Adhesives↗
Multimodal biometrics for identity documents (MBioID).
The MBioID initiative has been set up to address the following germane question: What and how biometric technologies could be deployed in identity documents in the foreseeable future? This research effort proposes to look at current and future practices and systems of establishing and using biometric identity documents (IDs) and evaluate their effectiveness in large-scale developments. The first objective of the MBioID project is to present a review document establishing the current state-of-the-art related to the use of multimodal biometrics in an IDs application. This research report gives the main definitions, properties and the framework of use related to biometrics, an overview of the main standards developed in the biometric industry and standardisation organisations to ensure interoperability, as well as some of the legal framework and the issues associated to biometrics such as privacy and personal data protection. The state-of-the-art in terms of technological development is also summarised for a range of single biometric modalities (2D and 3D face, fingerprint, iris, on-line signature and speech), chosen according to ICAO recommendations and availabilities, and for various multimodal approaches. This paper gives a summary of the main elements of that report. The second objective of the MBioID project is to propose relevant acquisition and evaluation protocols for a large-scale deployment of biometric IDs. Combined with the protocols, a multimodal database will be acquired in a realistic way, in order to be as close as possible to a real biometric IDs deployment. In this paper, the issues and solutions related to the acquisition setup are briefly presented.
Biometry↗
Motor and functional skills of children with developmental coordination disorder: a pilot investigation of measurement issues.
This paper reports on the motor and functional outcomes of 20 children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) aged 4-8 years consecutively referred to a pediatric physiotherapy service. Children with a Movement ABC (M-ABC) score less than the 15th percentile, and with no concurrent medical, sensory, physical, intellectual or neurological impairments, were recruited. The Motor Assessment Outcomes Model (MAOM) [Coster and Haley, Infants and Young Children 4 (1992) 11] provided the theoretical base for measurement selection, and preliminary findings at the activities and participation levels of the model are reported in this article. Children with DCD performed at the lower end of the normal range on the Peabody Developmental Motor Scales (fine motor total score) (M=85.65, SD=12.23). Performance on the Visual Motor Integration Test (VMI) standard scores was within the average range (M=96.15, SD=10.69). Videotaped observations of the children's writing and cutting indicated that 29% were left-handed and that a large proportion of all children (31%) utilized unusual pencil grasp patterns and immature prehension of scissors. Measurement at the participation level involved use of the Pictorial Scale of Perceived Competence and Social Acceptance (PCSA) and Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory (PEDI). Overall, these young children rated themselves towards the more competent and accepted end of the PCSA over the dimensions of physical and cognitive competence and peer and maternal acceptance. The PEDI revealed generally average performance on social (M=49.98, SD=16.62) and mobility function (M=54.71, SD=3.99), however, self-care function was below the average range for age (M=38.01, SD=12.19). The utility of the MAOM as a framework for comprehensive measurement of functional and motor outcomes of DCD in young children is discussed.
Child↗