Co-speech gesture in bimodal bilinguals

from Language and Cognitive Processes

The effects of knowledge of sign language on co-speech gesture were investigated by comparing the spontaneous gestures of bimodal bilinguals (native users of American Sign Language and English; n=13) and non-signing native English speakers (n=12). Each participant viewed and re-told the Canary Row cartoon to a non-signer whom they did not know. Nine of the thirteen bimodal bilinguals produced at least one ASL sign, which we hypothesise resulted from a failure to inhibit ASL. Compared with non-signers, bimodal bilinguals produced more iconic gestures, fewer beat gestures, and more gestures from a character viewpoint. The gestures of bimodal bilinguals also exhibited a greater variety of handshape types and more frequent use of unmarked handshapes. We hypothesise that these semantic and form differences arise from an interaction between the ASL language production system and the co-speech gesture system.

Adult Age Differences in Event-Based Prospective Memory: A Meta-Analysis on the Role of Focal Versus Nonfocal Cues

from Psychology and Aging

Studies of age differences in event-based prospective memory indicate wide variation in the magnitude of age effects. One explanation derived from the multiprocess framework proposes that age differences depend on whether the cue to carry out a prospective intention is focal to ongoing task processing. A meta-analysis of 117 effect sizes from 4,709 participants provided evidence for this view, as age effects were greater when the prospective cue to the ongoing task was nonfocal compared with when it was focal. However, the results only support a weaker but not a stronger prediction of the multiprocess framework, as age impairments were reliably above zero for both types of retrieval cues.

Self-Regulated Reading in Adulthood

from Psychology and Aging

Young and older adults read a series of passages of 3 different genres for an immediate assessment of text memory (measured by recall and true/false questions). Word-by-word reading times were measured and decomposed into components reflecting resource allocation to particular linguistic processes using regression. Allocation to word and textbase processes showed some consistency across the 3 text types and was predictive of memory performance. Older adults allocated more time to word and textbase processes than the young adults did but showed enhanced contextual facilitation. Structural equation modeling showed that greater resource allocation to word processes was required among readers with relatively low working memory spans and poorer verbal ability and that greater resource allocation to textbase processes was engendered by higher verbal ability. Results are discussed in terms of a model of self-regulated language processing suggesting that older readers may compensate for processing deficiencies through greater reliance on discourse context and on increases in resource allocation that are enabled through growth in crystallized ability.

The incidence of dyslexia among young offenders in Kuwait

from Dyslexia

Abstract
This paper investigates the incidence of dyslexia among young offenders in Kuwait. A total of 91 children/young adults from 8 juvenile delinquent welfare centres across Kuwait were interviewed and tested. A measure of non-verbal reasoning ability was used to exclude those with low general ability. The remaining 53 participants were tested on their ability to identify alliteration and rhyme, retain and manipulate sequences of digit and letter names, decode novel letter strings and identify words within letter chains. Participants’ reading accuracy, rate of reading, reading comprehension and ability to spell correctly dictated text were also assessed. These measures were used to determine those with indicators of dyslexia. The results indicated that the percentage of individuals presenting evidence of dyslexia was much larger (greater than 20%) in this population of young offenders than would be expected based on the national average (around 6%) of dyslexics in Kuwait derived from a nationwide study (A survey study of dyslexia in Kuwait, Kuwait Dyslexia Association: Kuwait City; 2002). These findings replicate previous evidence for an increased frequency of dyslexia among young offenders. The implications of such findings are discussed in terms of dyslexia awareness, socio-cultural factors, education and intervention, particularly in Kuwait juvenile delinquent welfare centres. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Gene expression analysis of human otosclerotic stapedial footplates

from Hearing Research

Otosclerosis is a complex disease that results in a common form of conductive hearing loss due to impaired mobility of the stapes. Stapedial motion becomes compromised secondary to invasion of otosclerotic foci into the stapedio-vestibular joint. Although environmental factors and genetic causes have been implicated in this process, the pathogenesis of otosclerosis remains poorly understood. To identify molecular contributors to otosclerosis we completed a microarray study of otosclerotic stapedial footplates. Stapes footplate samples from otosclerosis and control patients were used in the analysis. One-hundred-and-ten genes were found to be differentially expressed in otosclerosis samples. Ontological analysis of differentially expressed genes in otosclerosis provides evidence for the involvement of a number of pathways in the disease process that include interleukin signaling, inflammation and signal transduction, suggesting that aberrant regulation of these pathways leads to abnormal bone remodeling. Functional analyses of genes from this study will enhance our understanding of the pathogenesis of this disease.

Perturbation and nonlinear dynamic analysis of acoustic phonatory signal in Parkinsonian patients receiving deep brain stimulation

from the Journal of Communication Disorders

Nineteen PD patients who received deep brain stimulation (DBS), 10 non-surgical (control) PD patients, and 11 non-pathologic age- and gender-matched subjects performed sustained vowel phonations. The following acoustic measures were obtained on the sustained vowel phonations: correlation dimension (D2), percent jitter, percent shimmer, SNR, F0, vF0, and vAm. The results indicated the following: The mean D2 of control PD patients was significantly higher than the mean D2 of non-pathologic subjects and patients who received deep brain stimulation. These results suggest an improvement in PD voice in treated patients. Many PD vocal samples in this study have type 2 signals containing subharmonics that may not be suitable for perturbation analysis but are suitable for nonlinear dynamic analysis, making the D2 results more reliable. These findings show that DBS may provide measurable improvement in patients with severe vocal impairment.

Changes in aphasic discourse after contrasting treatments for anomia

from Aphasiology

Background: Discourse analysis is a key element in determining treatment effects. However, it is extremely labour intensive, requiring in-depth knowledge of linguistics and aphasiology; thus, it is often neglected in the analysis of treatment outcomes. A clinically practical method of discourse analysis would be beneficial for evaluation and determination of treatment efficacy.

Aims: The current study investigates changes in discourse content following contrasting treatments for anomia using grammatical analysis. In addition, we pilot the use of a new information measure.

Methods & Procedures: We compare discourse changes after a gestural + verbaltreatment and a semantic-phonologic treatment for nouns and verbs on two groups of individuals with aphasia. Analyses compared discourse samples from 14 participants taken at baseline, post-phase 1, and post-phase 2. In addition to traditional measures such as number of nouns, verbs, and sentence types, a new measure of information is introduced, the Utterance with New Information (UNI). The UNI is designed to assess content in non-propositional, impaired speech in open-ended discourse.

Outcomes & Results: Noun production increased in participants of both treatments, whereas grammatical sentences increased only in participants of the semantic-phonologic treatment. Production of UNIs increased in participants of both treatments as well as over time.

Conclusions: This study demonstrates that a few easily counted measures of discourse production can provide clinically useful information for the clinician. Moreover, these findings suggest discourse analysis is a viable method of determining treatment outcomes especially given that improving discourse is the ultimate goal of all aphasia treatments.

Dissociation of procedural and semantic memory in absolute-pitch processing

from Hearing Research

We describe two memory-retrieval systems in absolute-pitch (AP) processing and propose existence of a universal internal pitch template to which subpopulations of musicians selectively gain access through the two systems. In Experiment I, AP and control musicians adjusted the frequency of a pure tone to match the pitch of a visually displayed randomly selected musical note. In Experiment II the same subjects vocally produced within 2 s the pitch associated with a randomly selected musical note label. AP musicians, but not controls, were highly accurate in frequency matching. Surprisingly, both AP and non-AP groups were extremely accurate in voicing the target pitch as determined from an FFT of the recorded voiced notes (i.e., σ = 0.97, 0.90 semitones, respectively). Spectrogram analysis showed that notes voiced by non-AP musicians are accurate from onset of voicing suggesting that pitch accuracy does not result from an auditory-motor feedback loop. Findings support existence of two memory-retrieval systems for musical pitch: a semantic associative form of memory used by AP musicians, and a more widespread form of procedural memory which allows precise access to internal pitch representations through the vocal-motor system.