Book reviews

Bloom, A. H. The Linguistic Shaping of Thought : A Study of the Impact of Language on Thinking in China and the West. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum. 1981. Pp. 106. £9.95. ISBN 0 89859 089 2.

Fodor, J. A. Representations : Philosophical Essays in the Foundations of Cognitive Science. Brghton: Harvester. 1981. Pp. 343. £22.50. ISBN 0 85527 977 X.

Sanford, A. J. and Garrod, S. C. Understanding Written Language: Explorations in Comprehension Beyond the Sentence. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. 1981. Pp. xiv + 224. £ 11.30. ISBN 0 471 27842 4.

Springer, S. P. and Deutsch, G. Left Brain, Right Brain. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman & Co. 1981. Pp. 243. £4.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 7167 1270 9.

Crystal, D. Introduction to Language Pathology. London : Edward Arnold. 1980. Pp. 214. ISBN 0 7131 62759. £5.50.

Hulme, C. Reading Retardation and Multi-Sensory Teaching. London : Routledge & Kegan Paul. 1981. £12.50. Pp. 200. ISBN 0 7100 0761 2.

Liben, I,. S., Patterson, A. R. and Newcombe, N. (Eds). Spatial Representation and Behaviour Across the Life Span. New York: Academic Press. 1981. Pp. 404. ISBN 0 12 447980 4. £17.80.

Coltman, D. Jean Piaget: Experiments in Contradiction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1980. Pp. 310. ISBN 0 226 66779 0. £13.20.

Hofer, M. A. The Roots of Human Behavior. San Francisco: Freeman. 1981. Pp. xiii + 331. Paperback £6.70. ISBN 0 7167 1278 4.     

Persuasive communications to change actions: an analysis of behavioral and cognitive impact in HIV prevention.

This meta-analysis examined the validity of various theoretical assumptions about cognitive and behavioral change following a communication recommending condom use. The synthesis comprised 82 treatment and 29 control groups included in 46 longitudinal reports with measures of perceived severity and susceptibility, attitudes and expectancies, norms, perceptions of control, intentions, knowledge, behavioral skills, or condom use. Results indicated that across the sample of studies, communications taught recipients about facts related to HIV and also induced favorable attitudes and expectancies, greater control perceptions, and stronger intentions to use condoms in the future. Moreover, messages that presented attitudinal information and modeled behavioral skills led to increased condom use. Results are discussed in the context of theories of human behavior and change and in reference to HIV-prevention interventions.     

El enigma de los «Big five»: ¿realidad o representación?

Resumen

A partir de la revisión de Sánchez Bernardos sobre el enfoque léxico y los cinco grandes factores de personalidad se hacen algunos comentarios y especulaciones. Se aborda la polémica cuestión de si los cinco grandes son estructuras cognitivo-semánticas o reflejan realidades empíricas.     

Prenatal daily musical exposure is associated with enhanced neural representation of speech fundamental frequency: Evidence from neonatal frequency-following responses

Fetal hearing experiences shape the linguistic and musical preferences of neonates. From the very first moment after birth, newborns prefer their native language, recognize their mother's voice, and show a greater responsiveness to lullabies presented during pregnancy. Yet, the neural underpinnings of this experience inducing plasticity have remained elusive. Here we recorded the frequency-following response (FFR), an auditory evoked potential elicited to periodic complex sounds, to show that prenatal music exposure is associated to enhanced neural encoding of speech stimuli periodicity, which relates to the perceptual experience of pitch. FFRs were recorded in a sample of 60 healthy neonates born at term and aged 12–72 hours. The sample was divided into two groups according to their prenatal musical exposure (29 daily musically exposed; 31 not-daily musically exposed). Prenatal exposure was assessed retrospectively by a questionnaire in which mothers reported how often they sang or listened to music through loudspeakers during the last trimester of pregnancy. The FFR was recorded to either a /da/ or an /oa/ speech-syllable stimulus. Analyses were centered on stimuli sections of identical duration (113 ms) and fundamental frequency (F₀ = 113 Hz). Neural encoding of stimuli periodicity was quantified as the FFR spectral amplitude at the stimulus F₀. Data revealed that newborns exposed daily to music exhibit larger spectral amplitudes at F₀ as compared to not-daily musically-exposed newborns, regardless of the eliciting stimulus. Our results suggest that prenatal music exposure facilitates the tuning to human speech fundamental frequency, which may support early language processing and acquisition.

Research Highlights

• Frequency-following responses to speech were collected from a sample of neonates prenatally exposed to music daily and compared to neonates not-daily exposed to music.
• Neonates who experienced daily prenatal music exposure exhibit enhanced frequency-following responses to the periodicity of speech sounds.
• Prenatal music exposure is associated with a fine-tuned encoding of human speech fundamental frequency, which may facilitate early language processing and acquisition.