TMS suppression of right pars triangularis, but not pars opercularis, improves naming in aphasia

This study sought to discover if an optimum 1 cm² area in the non-damaged right hemisphere (RH) was present, which could temporarily improve naming in chronic, nonfluent aphasia patients when suppressed with repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). Ten minutes of slow, 1 Hz rTMS was applied to suppress different RH ROIs in eight aphasia cases. Picture naming and response time (RT) were examined before, and immediately after rTMS. In aphasia patients, suppression of right pars triangularis (PTr) led to significant increase in pictures named, and significant decrease in RT. Suppression of right pars opercularis (POp), however, led to significant increase in RT, but no change in number of pictures named. Eight normals named all pictures correctly; similar to aphasia patients, RT significantly decreased following rTMS to suppress right PTr, versus right POp. Differential effects following suppression of right PTr versus right POp suggest different functional roles for these regions.     

Analysis of the multidimensionality of hallucination-like experiences in clinical and nonclinical Spanish samples and their relation to clinical symptoms: implications for the model of continuity

Numerous studies have found that hallucinatory experiences occur in the general population. But to date, few studies have been conducted to compare clinical and nonclinical groups across a broad array of clinical symptoms that may co-occur with hallucinations. Likewise, hallucination-like experiences are measured as a multidimensional construct, with clinical and subclinical components related to vivid daydreams, intrusive thoughts, perceptual disturbance, and clinical hallucinatory experiences. Nevertheless, these individual subcomponents have not been examined across a broad spectrum of clinically disordered and nonclinical groups. The goal of the present study was to analyze the differences and similarities in the distribution of responses to hallucination-like experience in clinical and nonclinical populations and to determine the relation of these hallucination-like experiences with various clinical symptoms. These groups included patients with schizophrenia, non-psychotic clinically disordered patients, and a group of individuals with no psychiatric diagnoses. The results revealed that hallucination-like experiences are related to various clinical symptoms across diverse groups of individuals. Regression analysis found that the Psychoticism dimension of the Symptom Check List (SCL-90-R) was the most important predictor of hallucination-like experiences. Additionally, increased auditory and visual hallucination was the only subcomponent that differentiated schizophrenic patients from other groups. This distribution of responses in the dimensions of hallucination-like experiences suggests that not all the dimensions are characteristic of people hearing voices. Vivid daydreams, intrusive thoughts, and auditory distortions and visual perceptual distortions may represent a state of general vulnerability that does not denote a specific risk for clinical hallucinations. Overall, these results support the notion that hallucination-like experiences are closer to a quasi-continuum approach and that total scores on these scales explain a state of vulnerability to general perceptual disturbance.     

Essentialism and the expression of social stereotypes: a comparative study of Spain, Brasil and England

Over the past few years, one of the most productive directions in the study of the activation and application of stereotypes has been provided by the essentialist concept of categorization. The research presented here studied the impact of two dimensions of essentialist beliefs--naturalism and entitativity-by using data collected from Brazil, Spain and England. The aim was to test whether there was a greater degree of essentialization among the naturalizable categories (sex, age and race) than among the entitative categories (economic condition, religion, political orientation, nationality and social condition). The results not only showed that participants hold more essentialist beliefs with regard to naturalistic categories but also showed the differences in the degree of essentialization across the three cultures. A discussion is conducted on the implications of the present findings, and on the heuristic value of the theoretical model (of the bidimensional nature of essentialism) adopted by this research.     

Testing parameters in structural equation modeling: every "one" matters

A problem with standard errors estimated by many structural equation modeling programs is described. In such programs, a parameter's standard error is sensitive to how the model is identified (i.e., how scale is set). Alternative but equivalent ways to identify a model may yield different standard errors, and hence different Z tests for a parameter, even though the identifications produce the same overall model fit. This lack of invariance due to model identification creates the possibility that different analysts may reach different conclusions about a parameter's significance level even though they test equivalent models on the same data. The authors suggest that parameters be tested for statistical significance through the likelihood ratio test, which is invariant to the identification choice.     

Estimation of speakers' weight and height from speech: a re-analysis of data from multiple studies by Lass and colleagues

Research on identification of speakers' weight and height from their speech has yielded controversial results. Conclusions from a series of reports conducted by Lass and colleagues must be interpreted with caution because they are based on comparisons of only two types of data, mean of actual values and mean of estimated values. Cohen and others clearly demonstrated that this method of analysis overstated the accuracy of listeners' judgments. Following Van Dommelen's procedure, data from six of Lass's reports were re-analyzed with more appropriate statistics. Results of re-analysis show that (a) listeners are not very efficient guessing the weight or height of speakers, as only 14%, of the estimations correlated significantly with actual values. (b) Judgments are highly consistent under different acoustic conditions, suggesting that listeners follow vocal stereotypes about the body size of speakers, even though these stereotypes are wrong.     

The role of motion direction selective extrastriate regions in reading: a transcranial magnetic stimulation study

Why reading ability is correlated with motion processing ability is perplexing. Activity in motion direction processing regions (Area V5/MT+) was perturbed by means of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to examine its effect on reading. A functional probe (significant shortening of the motion aftereffect) was used to identify Area V5/MT+. Right-handed participants (8 m, 8 f) received three 7.5 min blocks of rTMS, after which two phonological and one orthographic reading tasks were administered. Application of rTMS to Area V5/MT+ (as compared to a non-rTMS baseline) significantly decreased performance only during non-word naming. The pattern of naming errors and the absence of deficits on the second phonological task were not consistent with a role for Area V5/MT+ in phonological decoding. Instead, its role in reading may be limited to image stabilization and/or letter localization.     

Never ready: Addictions counselors dealing with client death

This study explored the experiences of addictions counselors who have undergone client death and the immediate and long-lasting impacts of client death on addictions counselors through the consensual qualitative research (CQR) method. We conducted semistructured interviews with 10 participants exploring their lived, in-depth, experiences in working with clients with addictive disorders with focus given to the death of clients and how they responded to the experience. Results from a data analysis process using the CQR method indicate eight domains: (a) professional ethics, (b) coping skills, (c) client care, (d) preparation for profession, (e) experience of addiction, (f) agency impact, (g) exploring the death experience, (h) recommendations, and 28 categories embedded in each of these domains. Implications for counselor education, training, and practice are discussed.     

Transcortical sensory aphasia: Evidence for subtypes

Impaired auditory comprehension and fluent but semantically empty speech in conjunction with preserved repetition characterize the syndrome of transcortical sensory aphasia (TSA). Repetition, however, may be mediated by at least two distinct processes--a lexical process that may involve the recognition and subsequent activation of discrete stored word representations and a nonlexical process that involves phonologic decoding and immediate phonologic encoding from immediate memory. We investigated the spontaneous speech, reading, and tendency to recognize and spontaneously correct syntactic errors in four patients with TSA: this analysis suggests there are two subtypes of TSA. We contend that in one subtype both the lexical and direct repetition (or speech production) mechanisms are preserved, but in the second subtype the lexical mechanism is disrupted and repetition is mediated by the nonlexical mechanism.     

Linguistic semantic agraphia: A dissociation of the lexical spelling system from semantics

Two spelling systems have been described. The phonological system transcodes speech sounds to letters and is thought to be useful for spelling regular words and pronounceable nonwords. Although the second system, the lexical-semantic system, is thought to use visual word images and meaning to spell irregular words, it is not known if this system is dependent on semantic knowledge. We used a homophone spelling test to examine the lexical-semantic system in five patients. The patients were asked to spell individual homophones (doe or dough) using the context of a sentence. Semantically incorrect and correct homophones were spelled equally well, whether they were regular or irregular. These results demonstrate that an irregular word may be spelled without knowledge of the word's meaning. Therefore, the lexical system can be dissociated from semantic influence.