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PubMed1991

The effect of linguistic entropy on speech perception in noise in young and elderly listeners.

The rationale for a method to quantify the information content of linguistic stimuli, i.e., the linguistic entropy, is developed. The method is an adapted version of the letter-guessing procedure originally devised by Shannon [Bell Syst. Tech. J. 30, 50-64 (1951)]. It is applied to sentences included in a widely used test to measure speech-reception thresholds and originally selected to be approximately equally redundant. Results of a first experiment reveal that this method enables one to detect subtle differences between sentences and sentence lists with respect to linguistic entropy. Results of a second experiment show that (1) in young listeners and with the sentences employed, manipulating linguistic entropy can result in an effect on SRT of approximately 4 dB in terms of signal-to-noise ratio; (2) the range of this effect is approximately the same in elderly listeners.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Emotional and linguistic perception of prosody. Reception of prosody.

The objective of the study was to find out whether there is a connection between the perception of linguistic intonation contours and emotional intonation. Twenty-four subjects were asked to identify and discriminate emotional prosody listening to subtests 8A and 8B of the Tübinger Affect Battery as well as to 36 utterances that differed in linguistic intonation contour and were first presented normally and then low-pass-filtered. The subjects were divided into an older and a younger group in order to detect a possible age effect. The results showed that the ability to recognize and identify emotional prosody did not decline with age. These results are in contrast to the linguistic intonation contours, for which performance typically declined with age. Also, the low-pass-filtered utterances are more difficult to identify if the intonation contour is not salient, as in imperatives. Finally, the results do not show a gender difference. In sum the results indicate that emotional prosody and the reception of linguistic intonation contours seem to be processed by the same or similar brain structures.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Linguistic adaptations during spoken and multimodal error resolution.

Fragile error handling in recognition-based systems is a major problem that degrades their performance, frustrates users, and limits commercial potential. The aim of the present research was to analyze the types and magnitude of linguistic adaptation that occur during spoken and multimodal human-computer error resolution. A semiautomatic simulation method with a novel error-generation capability was used to collect samples of users' spoken and pen-based input immediately before and after recognition errors, and at different spiral depths in terms of the number of repetitions needed to resolve an error. When correcting persistent recognition errors, results revealed that users adapt their speech and language in three qualitatively different ways. First, they increase linguistic contrast through alternation of input modes and lexical content over repeated correction attempts. Second, when correcting with verbatim speech, they increase hyperarticulation by lengthening speech segments and pauses, and increasing the use of final falling contours. Third, when they hyperarticulate, users simultaneously suppress linguistic variability in their speech signal's amplitude and fundamental frequency. These findings are discussed from the perspective of enhancement of linguistic intelligibility. Implications are also discussed for corroboration and generalization of the Computer-elicited Hyperarticulate Adaptation Model (CHAM), and for improved error handling capabilities in next-generation spoken language and multimodal systems.

Computer Simulation↗
PubMed2003

A mediational model of the relationship between linguistic acculturation and polydrug use among Hispanic adolescents.

Hispanic seventh and eighth graders (N=1,038) in 22 New York City middle or junior high schools completed self-report questionnaires with items related to drug use (cigarette smoking, alcohol use, and marijuana use), linguistic acculturation (language use with parents), perceived peer smoking norms, perceived peer drinking norms, and psychological distress. Students who spoke English with their parents and bilingual students who spoke English and Spanish with their parents engaged in greater polydrug use than those who spoke Spanish with their parents. Bilingual students perceived that a higher proportion of their peers drink than those who spoke Spanish with their parents, and this higher perception of their peers' drinking was associated with greater polydrug use controlling for linguistic acculturation. In the final model, linguistic acculturation was no longer significant and peer drinking norms predicted polydrug use, peer drinking norms mediated the relationship between linguistic acculturation and polydrug use, but not peer smoking norms and psychological distress.

Acculturation↗
PubMedDate not supplied

An effect of linguistic experience. Auditory word discrimination by native and non-native speakers of English.

In this study, the effect of linguistic experience on the auditory discrimination of words has been examined. 18 subjects, including 6 native and 12 non-native speakers of English, were tested with CID auditory test W-22 in quiet and in the presence of white noise at the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratios of +12, +6 and 0 dB. The non-native speakers of English included 6 with 1 year of experience and 6 with 3-4 years of experience speaking Enligsh in the USA. In the absence of noise, the results were essentially equivalent for all three groups. As noise level increased, word discrimination deteriorated for all three groups with non-native speakers of English obtaining results significantly poorer than native speakers of English. Linguistic experience and noise levels were significant at the 0.001 level fo confidence. It appears that at 0 dB S/N, individual variability of non-native speakers of English, regardless of their original linguistic background, was much smaller than that found for native speakers of English. The results of the study tend to indicate that a limited linguistic experience results in a persistent deterioration of auditory word discrimination under impoverished conditions of audition.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Linguistic encoding in short-term memory as a function of stimulus type.

In this study, we investigated bases for encoding linguistic stimuli in short-term memory. Past research has provided evidence for both phonological (sound-based) and cherological (sign-based) encoding, the former typically found with hearing subjects and the latter with deaf users of sign language. In the present experiment, encoding capabilities were delineated from encoding preferences, using 58 subjects comprising six groups differing in hearing ability and linguistic experience. Phonologically related, cherologically related, and control lists were presented orally, manually, or through both modalities simultaneously. Recall performance indicated that individuals encode flexibly, the code actually used being biased by incoming stimulus characteristics. Subjects with both sign and speech experience recalled simultaneous presentations better than ones presented orally or manually alone, which reveals the occurrence of enhanced encoding as a function of linguistic experience. Total linguistic experience appeared to determine recall accuracy following different types of encoding, rather than determining the encoding basis used.

Adult↗
PubMed1981

Studies in linguistic ambiguity and insecurity.

This article focuses on problems of cross-culture communication between patients and psychiatrists of varying socio-linguistic and foreign language backgrounds, in an in-patient psychiatric community facility. Issues of diagnosis, integration into the ward treatment program, and progress in the course of treatment can in some cases be traced to specific socio-linguistic problems, which have previously gone undiagnosed. The clinical impact of three types of communication breakdowns are evaluated: (1) overt language differences; (2) linguistic ambiguity; and (3) linguistic insecurity. A need exists for further research in identification and assessment of language insecurity, and for modification of therapeutic procedures to deal with inter-dialectic communication difficulties.

Black or African American↗
PubMed1976

[The clinical picture, motor activity, electro-encephalographic, neurophysiologic and linguistic findings in a case of left-sided hemispherectomy (author's transl)].

In a patient aged 35 the left cerebral hemisphere was surgically removed for a cerebral angioma. Cerebral function has been examined clinically and from neurophysiologic, neuropsychologic and linguistic aspects. History, pre-and postoperative clinical findings are described. Post-operative motor-activity was registered continuously with 6 electromyograms. It is described, compared with a case of right sided hemispherectomy and discussed. On the basis of a survey of the literature the cerebral activity before and after operation, examined with quantitative EEG analysis, is described and discussed. After a general exposition of the linguistic ability of the right non-dominant hemisphere it is shown that this must have been a case of left dominance. On this assumption the formal-quantitative linguistic findings after left-sided hemispherectomy are described. The neuro-psychologic tests, pre- and post-operatively carried out with several techniques (LPS, HAWIE, FLT, Token-Test), are compared with each other and the results of further tests (a short form of the "Minnesota-test and our own collection of aphasia tests) after hemispherectomy added. After a survey of relevant descriptions in the literature the postoperative linguistic findings (lexic and morphology, syntax, relationship between idea and expressive realization) are described and compared with similar findings in the literature.

Adult↗
PubMed1975

[The relationship between the structuralism of Levi-Strauss and linguistic methods. An attempt at applying structuralist phonologic models to the study of pathologic language].

The structuralism which is generally accepted as a 'good French' school of thinking, presents in some of its applications the short-time character of fashion in such a way that one often forgets what this philosophy implicates. In this essay, the author intends to show that even though a structural method really exists, one cannot say who exactly is 'the father' of structuralism. But during the long maturity period of thought that resulted in structuralism, one important step has been made in France by Lévi-Strauss who has been using a great number of linguistic concepts, and at the same time has contributed to the consequent progress realized in that discipline. In the light of linguistics and of the works made by Lévi-Strauss some notions are redefined: those of structure, those of oppositions in the systems, those of relations inside one system, and the interactions between 'significant' and 'signifié'. Born from recent research in mathematics and cybernetics, the notion of Model, very fertile in linguistics, is an important element in the Lévi-Strauss structural methodology. With the help of examples taken from phonetics and phonology, the author intends to show how to elaborate a model, of what nature are the links between the observed object and the model, and what can be the applications of that method in the study of pathological languages; the author also intends to show that the main interest in a model of structural type is its explicative and previsional quality. A critical study of the structural analysis makes it possible to show the real contribution of structuralism: the author presents new ways that have been revealed by structuralism and some developments later on favorized by this discipline, mainly in linguistics. Remark. In this study of structuralism, the author places herself on the level with 'method' and not with 'philosophy'.

Child, Preschool↗
PubMed1994

Testing hypotheses on processes of genetic and linguistic change in the Caucasus.

Extensive genetic diversity exists in the populations of the Caucasus. Various hypotheses on its origin and evolution were tested by comparing genetic, geographic, and linguistic distances. Seventeen polymorphic loci and 107 localities were considered, and Mantel tests of matrix association were carried out. Genetic differences correlate more with linguistic than with geographic distances; but when populations are grouped by the language spoken, this correlation loses significance, whereas genetic and geographic distances between groups appear significantly associated. Hypotheses that classify North and South Caucasian languages into distinct families or that treat all North Caucasian languages as independent linguistic entities fail to account for genetic variation better than simpler models. We interpret these results as evidence for an evolutionary process in which linguistic and genetic divergence has resulted from population subdivision and from processes of elite dominance, that is, language replacement not associated with major migratory movements.

Alleles↗
PubMed1993

[Linguistic thinking disorders, dysphasia, and quality of life].

This study focuses on the nature and scope of thought disturbances in dysphasic children (age 6 to 10). It is a developmental and clinical study. The dysphasic child clearly manifests disturbances in language. These can be understood as disturbances of the linguistic "containers of thought". What impact do they have on the development of cognitive and affective experiences? A controlled study of logical operations involving reversibility and invariates shows some significant differences between dysphasic children and a matched group of non patient children. Findings, both, quantitative and qualitative, point to some specific difficulties in the acquisition of operative (in Piaget sense) structures of thought. Often regarded as "practical persons" dysphasic children manifest peculiar ways of integrating their affective experiences in a factual mode akin to alexithymia. Linguistic anomalies seem to be important elements of some complex "noeto linguistic" disturbances. Linguistic difficulties have a global impact on the quality of life of dysphasic children and need further investigation for developing relevant intervention programs.

Affect↗
PubMed2001

Functional heterogeneity of inferior frontal gyrus is shaped by linguistic experience.

A crosslinguistic, positron emission tomography (PET) study was conducted to determine the influence of linguistic experience on the perception of segmental (consonants and vowels) and suprasegmental (tones) information. Chinese and English subjects (10 per group) were presented binaurally with lists consisting of five Chinese monosyllabic morphemes (speech) or low-pass-filtered versions of the same stimuli (nonspeech). The first and last items were targeted for comparison; the time interval between target tones was filled with irrelevant distractor tones. A speeded-response, selective attention paradigm required subjects to make discrimination judgments of the target items while ignoring intervening distractor tones. PET scans were acquired for five tasks presented twice: one passive listening to pitch (nonspeech) and four active (speech = consonant, vowel, and tone; nonspeech = pitch). Significant regional changes in blood flow were identified from comparisons of group-averaged images of active tasks relative to passive listening. Chinese subjects show increased activity in left premotor cortex, pars opercularis, and pars triangularis across the four tasks. English subjects, on the other hand, show increased activity in left inferior frontal gyrus regions only in the vowel task and in right inferior frontal gyrus regions in the pitch task. Findings suggest that functional circuits engaged in speech perception depend on linguistic experience. All linguistic information signaled by prosodic cues engages left-hemisphere mechanisms. Storage and executive processes of working memory that are implicated in phonological processing are mediated in discrete regions of the left frontal lobe.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

Linguistic and nonlinguistic priming in aphasia.

Studies of real-time processing in aphasia suggest that linguistic symptoms may be due to deficits in activation dynamics rather than loss of linguistic knowledge. To investigate the domain specificity of such processing deficits, we compared performance by Italian-speaking fluent aphasics, nonfluent aphasics, and normal controls in a linguistic priming task (grammatical gender) with their performance in a color-priming task that requires no verbal mediation. Normal or larger than normal color-priming effects were demonstrated in both aphasic groups. Gender priming did not reach significance in either group, even though the patients displayed above-chance sensitivity to gender class and gender agreement in their accuracy scores. The demonstration of spared gender knowledge despite impaired gender priming underscores the utility of on-line techniques in the study of aphasia. The demonstration of spared color priming suggests that priming deficits in aphasia are either (1) specific to speech and language or (2) specific only to those sensorimotor and attentional processes that language shares with other nonlinguistic systems.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

Complementarity of linguistic and prosodic processes in the intact brain.

Despite considerable speculation in the research literature regarding the complementarity of functional lateralization of prosodic and linguistic processes in the normal intact brain, few studies have directly addressed this issue. In the present study, behavioral laterality indices of emotional prosodic and traditional linguistic speech functions were obtained for a sample of healthy young adults, using the dichotic listening method. After screening for adequate emotional prosody and linguistic recognition abilities, participants completed the Fused Rhymed Words Test (FRWT; Wexler & Halwes, 1983) and the Dichotic Emotion Recognition Test (DERT; McNeely & Netley, 1998). Examination of the difference in ear asymmetries for these measures within individuals revealed a complementary pattern in 78% of the sample. However, the correlation between laterality quotients for the FRWT and DERT was near zero, supporting Bryden's model of "statistical" complementarity (e.g., Bryden, 1990).

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Status of Austro-Asiatic groups in the peopling of India: An exploratory study based on the available prehistoric, linguistic and biological evidences.

Among the most contentious currently debated issues is about the people who had settled first in the Indian subcontinent. It has been suggested that the communities affiliated to the Austro-Asiatic linguistic family are perhaps the first to settle in India and the palaeoanthropological evidences suggest the earliest settlement probably around 60,000 years BP. Recent speculations, based on both traditional genetic markers and DNA markers, seem to corroborate the aforesaid view. However, these studies are inadequate both in terms of the representation of the constituent groups within this broad linguistic category as well as the number of samples that represent each of them. We strongly feel that, before making any formidable conclusions on the peopling of India and/or the history of settlement, it is necessary to ascertain that the Austro-Asiatic speakers, represented by over 30 different tribal groups, either genetically constitute a homogenous single entity or are a heterogeneous conglomeration, derived from different sources. As a first step towards this we tried to collate and analyse the existing information geographic, ethno-historic, cultural and biological. The results of the analyses of anthropometric and genetic marker data indicate that the Austro-Asiatic groups, particularly the Mundari speakers, with certain exceptions, show greater homogeneity among them when compared to the other linguistic groups, although certain groups show as outliers. However, traditional genetic markers show lower within population heterozygosity compared to Dravidian and other Indian populations. This is contrary to what has been claimed in case of certain DNA markers. Given that relatively greater heterozygosity among the Austro-Asiatic populations has been taken as one of the important evidences supporting greater antiquity of these populations one should await results of detailed DNA studies being currently undertaken by us, involving a number of Austro-Asiatic and other ethnic populations of India to resolve the issue unequivocally.

Asia↗
PubMed2004

Deciphering diversity in populations of various linguistic and ethnic affiliations of different geographical regions of India: analysis based on 15 microsatellite markers.

The extent of genetic polymorphism at fifteen autosomal microsatellite markers in 54 ethnically, linguistically and geographically diverse human populations of India was studied to decipher intrapopulation diversity. The parameters used to quantify intrapopulation diversity were average allele diversity, average heterozygosity, allele range (base pairs), and number of alleles. Multilocus genotype frequencies calculated for selected populations were utilized for testing conformity with the assumption of Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. The exact test values, after Bonferroni correction, showed significant deviation amongst Gowda (vWA, Penta E); Dhangar, Satnami and Gounder (D8S1179); Hmar (FGA); Kuki and Balti (vWA) groups. Relatively low number of alleles and allelic diversity (base-pairs size) had been observed in populations of central India as compared with southern and northern regions of the country. The communities of Indo-Caucasoid ethnic origin and Indo-European linguistic family (Kshatriya of Uttar Pradesh) showed highest allelic diversity, as well as rare alleles, not reported in any other Indian populations. Analysis based on average heterozygosity was also found to be lowest among the populations of central India (0.729) and highest among the populations from north (0.777) and west (0.784) regions of the country, having Indo-Caucasoid ethnic origin and Austro-Asiatic linguistic affiliation. The maximum power of discrimination (85%-89%) had been observed at loci FGA, Penta E, D18S51 and D21S11, suggested high intrapopulation diversity in India. Genetic diversity revealed by STR markers was consistent with the known demographic histories of populations. Thus, the present study clearly demonstrated that the intrapopulation diversity is not only present at the national level, but also within smaller geographical regions of the country. This is the first attempt to understand the extent of diversity within populations of India at such a large scale at genomic level.

Alleles↗
PubMed1983

Comparative analysis of parent-child interactions with language-disordered and linguistically normal children.

Audio-recordings were made in the home environment of 20 parent-child dyads. Each parent and child participated in a 15-min structured and a 15-min free-play period of interaction. Language samples were analyzed in three areas: frequency components, sentence types, and pragmatic discourse features. Significant differences were found between the linguistic interactions of parents with a language-disordered child and parents with a linguistically normal child in all areas studied. Few differences were found between mothers and fathers within each group. The conclusion is drawn that language-disordered children may live in a different type of linguistic environment which could function to maintain the underlying language problem.

Child, Preschool↗
PubMed1988

The role of linguistic and visual information in spelling: a developmental study.

This study investigated the processes that elementary school children use for spelling. Good and poor spellers in grades 3 through 6 spelled words and nonwords that differed in the types of information (phonological, orthographic, morphological, or visual) that could be used to produce their correct spelling. A multiple choice spelling recognition task was also administered. Error rates on words and nonwords were related to the type of information that could be used to determine the correct spelling. Words that could be spelled on the basis of linguistic information were easier than words that could be spelled only on the basis of visual information. While children were sensitive to the linguistic properties of the stimuli, their use and knowledge of various sources of linguistic information was not uniformly developed. Children had the most difficulty with spellings based on morphological information and the least difficulty with those based on invariant sound-spelling relationships. On the dictation and the nonword tasks, younger children and poorer spellers differed from older children and better spellers in the overall level of their knowledge, but all children showed a similar pattern of results suggesting that they did not use different processes to spell words. However, the data from the recognition task suggested that poor spellers may rely more on visual information than good spellers.

Achievement↗