The role of context in remembering familar persons: insights from semantic dementia

Semantic dementia (SD) is a progressive condition characterized by an insidious and gradual breakdown in semantic knowledge. Patients suffering from this condition gradually lose their knowledge of objects and their attributes, concepts, famous persons, and public events. In contrast, these patients maintain a striking preservation of autobiographical memory. The aim of the present study was to examine in a patient suffering from SD the role of context in the ability to recall knowledge of familiar persons. In an experiment, patient J.M. was asked to name and identify familiar persons that appeared on family photographs from recent and remote periods of her life. In the first experimental condition, the pictures represented personally familiar persons present in a specific spatial and temporal context. In a second experimental condition, the pictures showed personally familiar persons who were presented without any specific episodic context. Results indicate that the patient was able to name and identify familiar persons irrespective of the context of presentation (with/without context) and of the time period (recent/remote). No temporal gradient was found using family photographs. Finally, in contrast with familiar persons, J.M. presented a severe anomia for celebrities. Results are discussed in light of recent research in the field.     

Cognitive function and depression in symptom resolution in schizophrenia patients treated with an atypical antipsychotic

OBJECTIVE: To investigate which cognitive and affective features contribute most to responder/non-responder group separation during a switching trial with atypical antipsychotic. DESIGN: A prospective open trial with an atypical antipsychotic (olanzapine). PATIENTS: One hundred and thirty-four patients meeting diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia, schizophreniform or schizoaffective disorder began an 8-week open-label olanzapine treatment at a dose of 5 mg/day which was increased to 10 mg/day after one week. INTERVENTIONS: Olanzapine during 8 weeks. Patients were considered as responders if their BPRS score decreased of at least 20% (n = 96) and non-responders if it did not (n = 38). Neuropsychological assessments were carried out at baseline, at four and at eight weeks. RESULTS: Neurocognitive measures were analyzed for discriminate factors between responder and non-responder groups. A regression analysis was applied to explain the effects of depression on each cognitive variable. Depression was found to be a weak discriminant factor, however this finding could not firmly establish that depression is a potential factor in explaining deficits and improvements in cognition.     

The rules versus similarity distinction

The distinction between rules and similarity is central to our understanding of much of cognitive psychology. Two aspects of existing research have motivated the present work. First, in different cognitive psychology areas we typically see different conceptions of rules and similarity; for example, rules in language appear to be of a different kind compared to rules in categorization. Second, rules processes are typically modeled as separate from similarity ones; for example, in a learning experiment, rules and similarity influences would be described on the basis of separate models. In the present article, I assume that the rules versus similarity distinction can be understood in the same way in learning, reasoning, categorization, and language, and that a unified model for rules and similarity is appropriate. A rules process is considered to be a similarity one where only a single or a small subset of an object's properties are involved. Hence, rules and overall similarity operations are extremes in a single continuum of similarity operations. It is argued that this viewpoint allows adequate coverage of theory and empirical findings in learning, reasoning, categorization, and language, and also a reassessment of the objectives in research on rules versus similarity.     

Lexical access without attention? Explorations using dichotic priming

The authors used lexical decision in a dichotic listening situation and measured identity priming across channels to explore whether unattended stimuli can be processed lexically. In 6 experiments, temporal synchronization of prime and target words was manipulated, and acoustic saliency of the unattended prime was varied by embedding it in a carrier sentence or in babble speech. When the prime was acoustically salient, a cross-channel priming effect emerged, and participants were aware of the prime. When the prime was less salient, no identity priming was found, and participants failed to notice the prime. Saliency was manipulated in ways that did not degrade the prime. Results are inconsistent with models of late filtering, which predict equal priming irrespective of prime saliency.     

The possibility of having knowledge of al‐wujūd al‐mahd ’sheer being’ according to ibn carabi's Kitab al‐jalal wa‐al‐jamal

Mysticism in general makes a distinction between ‘God‐for‐us’ and ‘God‐in‐him‐self. This paper attests that the Muslim mystic‐philosopher, Ibn ‘Arabi's concepts of ‘Sheer Possibility’ and ‘Sheer Being'; ‘Beauty’ and ‘Absolute Majesty’ parallel God‐for‐us and God‐in‐himself. The paper also attempts to examine the extent of possible human knowledge of God beyond the level ‘God‐for‐us'/'Beauty'/'sheer possibility’ and the relation of such developmental knowledge to the Qur'an, according to Ibn ^cArabi. The paper ends with a statement on the need to examine the hermeneutical mechanism supporting this sort of linking of human knowledge with the Qur'an and a need to discuss the possible motives behind traditionalization of developmental knowledge inputs.     

Local versus global processing of harmonic cadences in the solution of musical puzzles

The structure of Western musical pieces is delineated by several kinds of cadence. Half cadences in the main key indicate temporary endings; authentic cadences in the main key indicate definitive endings. Authentic cadences in the dominant key are of cognitive interest, since they mark a definitive ending at a local level but a temporary ending at a global level. This study investigated the local versus global processing of these cadences. Participants were presented with sections of 16-bar minuets displayed on a computer screen in the form of a musical jigsaw puzzle. The sections consisted of either the first or the second half of the minuet (8 bars each). The first section ended with either a half cadence in the main key (all experiments), an authentic cadence in the dominant key (all experiments), or an authentic cadence in the main key (Exp. 4). The second section always ended in an authentic cadence in the main key. Participants were asked either to join the two sections of each minuet in the most coherent order (Exps. 1, 2, 4) or to rate the perceived completion of each section (Exps. 3, 4). Numerous inversion errors were observed when the first section of the minuets ended with an authentic cadence in the dominant key. Completion judgments indicated that these cadences were perceived as marking a definitive ending. Both facts suggest that local processing of harmonic cadences prevails over global processing. This finding concurs with recent studies showing that listeners had great difficulties in perceiving the higher-order organization of musical form. Received: 30 September 1996 / Accepted: 20 August 1997     

Does Infant-Directed Speech Help Phonetic Learning? A Machine Learning Investigation

A prominent hypothesis holds that by speaking to infants in infant-directed speech (IDS) as opposed to adult-directed speech (ADS), parents help them learn phonetic categories. Specifically, two characteristics of IDS have been claimed to facilitate learning: hyperarticulation, which makes the categories more separable, and variability, which makes the generalization more robust. Here, we test the separability and robustness of vowel category learning on acoustic representations of speech uttered by Japanese adults in ADS, IDS (addressed to 18- to 24-month olds), or read speech (RS). Separability is determined by means of a distance measure computed between the five short vowel categories of Japanese, while robustness is assessed by testing the ability of six different machine learning algorithms trained to classify vowels to generalize on stimuli spoken by a novel speaker in ADS. Using two different speech representations, we find that hyperarticulated speech, in the case of RS, can yield better separability, and that increased between-speaker variability in ADS can yield, for some algorithms, more robust categories. However, these conclusions do not apply to IDS, which turned out to yield neither more separable nor more robust categories compared to ADS inputs. We discuss the usefulness of machine learning algorithms run on real data to test hypotheses about the functional role of IDS.     

How older adults use cognition in sentence-final word recognition

This study examined the effects of executive control and working memory on older adults’ sentence-final word recognition. The question we addressed was the importance of executive functions to this process and how it is modulated by the predictability of the speech material. To this end, we tested 173 neurologically intact adult native English speakers aged 55–84 years. Participants were given a sentence-final word recognition test in which sentential context was manipulated and sentences were presented in different levels of babble, and multiple tests of executive functioning assessing inhibition, shifting, and efficient access to long-term memory, as well as working memory. Using a generalized linear mixed model, we found that better inhibition was associated with higher accuracy in word recognition, while increased age and greater hearing loss were associated with poorer performance. Findings are discussed in the framework of semantic control and are interpreted as supporting a theoretical view of executive control which emphasizes functional diversity among executive components.     

Psychological distress and quality of life of people living with HIV/AIDS in a Nigerian teaching hospital

Presence of psychological distress and poor quality of life (QoL) may affect the outcome of HIV/AIDS. One hundred and seventeen consecutive and consenting participants were interviewed using a Socio-demographic questionnaire, Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10) and World Health Organization Quality of Life-HIV Bref. Fifty-six (47.9%) participants scored 20 and above on K10 Scale. QoL was significantly higher in married participants, those who perceived their state of health as being good, asymptomatic participants and those who scored well–mild on K10. The older age group scored higher on QoL Scale than the younger age group in the physical health domain while the married participants scored higher in the domains of physical health, psychological health, environment and spiritual/religion. The participants who perceived their state of health as being good scored higher than those who perceived their health as poor in all domains. There is a high level of psychological distress and poor QoL in people living with HIV/AIDS.