Motor Performance of Stutterers and Nonstutterers on Timing and Force Control Tasks

Recently it has been suggested that speech and manual timing tasks share a common central process (Franz, Zelaznik, & Smith, 1992). Because stuttering is thought to be related to deficits in motoric processes such as timing, stutterers (n = 15) were compared with a set of age-, education-, and sex-matched nonstutterers on timing and isometric force-production tasks. In the timing tasks, subjects flexed and extended the right index finger at the metacarpophalangeal joint at cycle durations of 600, 500, 400, 300, and 200 ms. In the force-production tasks, subjects generated isometric forces to match target force levels displayed on a cathode-ray tube (CRT) screen. There were five levels of force, ranging from .11 to 7.85 newtons. Overall, there were no differences in timing and force-production performance between stutterers and nonstutterers. These results are similar to those obtained recently by Hulstijn, Summers, van Lieshout, and Peters (1992). We suggest that stuttering is not characterized by a general deficit in rhythmic timing. Instead, the motor deficit associated with stuttering should be viewed as speech specific.     

Motor Performance of Stutterers and Nonstutterers on Timing and Force Control Tasks

Recently it has been suggested that speech and manual timing tasks share a common central process (Franz, Zelaznik, & Smith, 1992): Because stuttering is thought to be related to deficits in motoric processes such as timing, stutterers (n = 15) were compared with a set of age-, education-, and sex-matched nonstutterers on timing and isometric force-production tasks. In the timing tasks, subjects flexed and extended the right index finger at the metacarpophalangeal joint at cycle durations of 600, 500, 400, 300, and 200 ms. In the force-production tasks, subjects generated isometric forces to match target force levels displayed on a cathode-ray tube (CRT) screen. There were five levels of force, ranging from.11 to 7.85 newtons. Overall, there were no differences in timing and force-production performance between stutterers and nonstutterers. These results are similar to those obtained recently by Hulstijn, Summers, van Lieshout, and Peters (1992). We suggest that stuttering is not characterized by a general deficit in rhythmic timing. Instead, the motor deficit associated with stuttering should be viewed as speech specific.     

Features Resembling Tourette''s Syndrome in Developmental Stutterers

Developmental stuttering (DS) may be related to the extrapyramidal motor system and shares many clinical similarities with Tourette's syndrome (TS), which is widely believed to be associated with extrapyramidal dysfunction. Twenty-two stutterers were examined for neuropsychiatric features commonly seen in TS, including tics, obsessive-compulsive behaviors (OCB), and attention deficit disorders. Eleven stutterers displayed motor tics, and symptoms of OCB were observed at rates similar to those seen in persons with TS. Few stutterers demonstrated significant attentional deficits. Findings are consistent with models suggesting extrapyramidal involvement in DS and raise the possibility that DS and TS are pathogenetically related.     

Brain Potentials from Normal Speakers and Stutterers

The purposes of this study were to determine the differences in self-esteeem and alienation between homosexual and heterosexual American males, and the differences in self-esteem and alienation in homosexual males, by selected demographic variables and sexual behavior. Eighty-six American male homosexuals indicated significantly greater alienation than heterosexual males, but similar self-esteem levels. Religion, oral-genital insertion preference, and marital status were significantly related to self-esteem and alienation, whereas anal intercourse insertion preference and degree of homosexuality were not found to be significantly related to self-esteem and alienation.     

Some Characteristics of the Written Speech of Stutterers: I.

Abstract

(Bühler, Charlotte. The Child and his Family. Translated by Henry Beaumont. New York: Harper, 1939. Pp. 187.) Reviewed by Walter L. Wilkins     

Stutterers and others: A comparison of communication attitudes

The Erickson 39-item S-scale was administered to 24 persons who stutter, 24 persons with voice or articulation disorders, and 24 normal speakers. The purpose of the study was to determine if the three populations differed in communication attitude. The one-way analysis of variance showed that the three groups differed significantly. Normal speakers revealed the most desirable communication attitude; the communication attitude of the voice and articulation disorders population was less favorable than normals; the communication attitude of the stuttering population was least favorable.     

Deliberate Control of Continuous Motor Performance

The authors examined the means by which people vary movement parameters to satisfy more than 1 constraint at a time in a repetitive motor task. The authors expected that when participants (N = 12) were simultaneously confronted with spatial and temporal constraints in an ellipse-drawing task, they would either exploit the intrinsic amplitude-frequency relationships or activate less natural control regimes to prioritize their movement goals. By focusing on local amplitude and frequency errors and parameter changes from 1 movement to the next, the authors distinguished parameter changes that reflected exploitation of biomechanics from those that required deliberate control. The findings demonstrated that at low movement speeds, participants can pursue multiple movement goals simultaneously; at higher speeds, their capacity to satisfy multiple task goals is reduced. The authors used a new method of inferring deliberate control from movement kinematics in the present study.     

Design Reproduction with Motor Performance Held Constant

A design reproduction task was constructed which practically eliminated the influence of motor processes. Significant differences in performance were obtained among Ss arranged along a pathological continuum. Results suggested that disorganized perception, with or without concomitant motor breakdown, is sufficient to explain faulty performance on perceptual-motor tasks.     

Motivational Effects of Outcome Feedback on Motor Performance

This study examined the effects of success and failure feedback on subsequent motor performance. Based upon the general motivation (or level-of-aspiration) hypothesis, initial success should lead to better subsequent performance than does initial failure, while the reverse prediction was derived from the cognitive dissonance theory. To test these rival hypotheses, two experiments were conducted on undergraduate male students (n =120) performing a motor maze task. Initial failure improved subjects’ subsequent performance, thus supporting the dissonance theory. However, this effect was observed only under low-ego-involving conditions, thereby suggesting that the effects of dissonance and ego involvement are interdependent. The findings were discussed in terms of motivational and informational/attributional effects of outcome feedback on motor performance.     

Spontaneous Imitation of Fundamental Frequency and Speech Rate by Nonstutterers and Stutterers

Speech can be described either in terms of acoustics, as a perceptual outcome, or as a motor event. Central to theories of speech perception and production is an attempt to describe how these aspects of speech are interrelated. The present experiment investigated how the nonstutterers' and stutterers' reproductions of acoustically presented interrogative sentences were influenced by experimental variations of intonation (sentence initial vs. sentence final) and speech rate (normal vs. time compressed). We studied the effects of these stimulus manipulations on the speech rate and fundamental frequency (F₀ ) of 10 adult German-speaking nonstutterers and seven stutterers. Experimental manipulations of intonation and speech rate significantly influenced the syllable duration and speech rate of both normal speakers and stutterers. The fundamental frequency of the subjects' responses were also significantly influenced by the intonation of the stimulus. But the stutterers' increase in F₀ for stressed syllables was generally less pronounced than that of nonstutterers. These results imply that (a) the subjects not only extract linguistic meaning from intonation but that they also store extragrammatical speech rate information, and (b) the speakers adopt these speech rate variations for their own productions. Generally, these results demonstrate that speech perception is not limited to extracting linguistically invariant information. The results show that speakers actively generate their own prosody and that this generative process is influenced by the prosodic structure of another speaker's antecedent speech. The implications of these results for theories of speech production are discussed.     

Gross Motor Performance in Minimally Brain Injured Children

As a pre-requisite to curriculum development, the characteristics of the gross motor performance of special education classes of minimally brain injured boys and girls were described. In general, age changes in mean performance were linear, the scores of the boys being the superior. The level of performance very closely resembled that of comparison groups of educable mentally retarded children from the same school districts.     

Effect of an Audience on Performance of a Motor Task

40 College Ss were placed in 4 groups and tested on a star-tracing task on 2 occasions under the following conditions: spectators-no-spectators; spectators-spectators; no-spectators-no-spectators; no-spectators—spectators. It was found that the presence or absence of spectators had no noticeable effect on the initial learning phase as contrasted to later stages of performance. When conditions remained the same on both testing occasions, less errors were made. Speed was generally quicker under altered task conditions.     

Motor Performance in the Third,Not the Second Month,Predicts Further Motor Development

ABSTRACT. The aim was to verify if motor performance at second or third month of life better predicts further development. The global motor development was assessed by a neurologist and by a physiotherapist in 111 children at 2, 3, 6, and 9 months. At 2 and 3 months a physiotherapist also performed the assessment of qualitative elements. The physiotherapeutic assessment in the third month showed higher compatibility with the neurological assessment. Proper motor performance at third month could ensure the level of at least 7 months in the ninth month of life. Qualitative score above 7 of 15 points in the third month ensured proper development in ninth month. Third month of life is a better predictor of further motor development.     

The Interrelationships Between Anxiety,Motor Performance and Electromyography

Notterman (1975) argued, contrary to my 1974 article, that the data obtained by Notterman and Page (1962) confirm the important role of proprioception in skilled performance. I argue that these data are in fact ambiguous when it comes to distinguishing the effects of proprioception from those of outflow control.     

Working Memory Training Improves Dual-Task Performance on Motor Tasks

The authors investigated whether working memory training improves motor-motor dual-task performance consisted of upper and lower limb tasks. The upper limb task was a simple reaction task and the lower limb task was an isometric knee extension task. 45 participants (age = 21.8 ± 1.6 years) were classified into a working memory training group (WM-TRG), dual-task training group, or control group. The training duration was 2 weeks (15 min, 4 times/week). Our results indicated that working memory capacity increased significantly only in the WM-TRG. Dual-task performance improved in the WM-TRG and dual-task training group. Our study provides the novel insight that working memory training improves dual-task performance without specific training on the target motor task.     

Motor Performance and Response Consistency as a Function of Age

The specificity versus generality of motor performance and motor response consistency was investigated as a function of age. 120 Ss, 30 each at age 7, 11, 15, and 19 yr., were given 120 practice trials (60 trials per session with 24 hr interpolated between sessions) on both simple and choice RT tasks. For motor performance the reliability of individual differences was high in both tasks at all ages, while the amount of generality was moderately high in the two younger groups but diminished with age. The reliability coefficients for motor response consistency were low for both tasks but, with two exceptions, statistically significant. There was no evidence for generality in motor response consistency at any age.     

干扰情境下类比习得运动技能的稳定性表现

本实验以高尔夫推杆技能学习为任务,采用双因素混合设计,通过对24名高尔夫新手的研究比较了类比和外显两种学习方式获得的运动技能在干扰情境下的操作表现。结果发现:(1)类比学习和外显学习在运动技能形成过程中的效果是相当的;(2)类比学习获得的运动技能在干扰情境下操作表现稳定,而外显学习获得的运动技能表现却下降。类比学习是一种具有实践应用价值的内隐学习方法。     

The Effect of Motor-Mental Preperformance Routines on Motor Performance in Novice Learners

Two sequential studies were conducted to test the notion that preperformance routines (PPRs) positively affect motor performance. The first study consisted of observations and interviews with 115 elite athletes to explore crucial time periods and body positions inherent in expert preparation for performing a golf putt, tennis serve, volleyball serve, and basketball free throw. In the second study, we taught these features of PPR to novice performers: 240 male and female high school students were assigned to two motor-mental PPR, and one control condition. Findings revealed that PPR enhances motor performance and can be implemented at an early stage of learning.     

Effects of Fencing Training on Motor Performance and Asymmetry Vary With Handedness

Abstract

Previous studies showed that motor asymmetries are reduced in left-handers and after a long-term fencing training in right-handers. Interestingly, left-handed athletes are substantially over-represented in elite fencing. These findings have been speculatively explained by imbalance in experience of fighting opposite handedness opponents resulted from skewed distribution of handedness, i.e. lefties encounter more righties than righties encounter lefties. Whereas these assumptions could be accurate, the underlying mechanisms remain ambiguous. In this study, we investigated effects of fencing training on motor performance and asymmetry with respect to handedness. We compared fencing performance of left- and right-handed fencers in both training and combat conditions. In the combat condition, left-handers won seven out of twelve matches consisted of twelve bouts each. They also showed a significantly longer hit detection time, a measure indicating better quality of fencing attack. In the training condition, left-handed fencers completed fencing board tests significantly faster than right-handers. These findings provide additional factor of superior motor performance to be considered when interpreting over-representation of lefties in elite fencing. Furthermore, our left-handers were less lateralized, which could explain that superior motor performance. This idea is consistent with previous findings of reduced asymmetry in right-handed fencers when comparing to non-athletes.