Specificity in rehabilitation of word production: a meta-analysis and a case study

Speech production impairment is a frequent deficit observed in aphasic patients and rehabilitation programs have been extensively developed. Nevertheless, there is still no agreement on the type of rehabilitation that yields the most successful outcomes. Here, we ran a detailed meta-analysis of 39 studies of word production rehabilitation involving 124 patients. We used a model-driven approach for analyzing each rehabilitation task by identifying which levels of our model each task tapped into. We found that (1) all rehabilitation tasks are not equally efficient and the most efficient ones involved the activation of the two levels of the word production system: the phonological output lexicon and the phonological output, and (2) the activation of the speech perception system as it occurs in many tasks used in rehabilitation is not successful in rehabilitating word production. In this meta-analysis, the effect of the activation of the phonological output lexicon and the phonological output cannot be assessed separately. We further conducted a rehabilitation study with DPI, a patient who suffers from a damage of the phonological output lexicon. Our results confirm that rehabilitation is more efficient, in terms of time and performance, when specifically addressing the impaired level of word production.     

Brain activation patterns in major depressive disorder and work stress-related long-term sick leave among Swedish females

Deficits in executive functioning and working memory associated with frontal lobe dysfunction are prominent in depression and work-related long-term sick leave (LTSL). This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate potential differences in brain activation patterns in these conditions. In addition, the function of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis was examined and compared between groups. Since there is a clear overrepresentation of women in these diagnostic groups, and to ensure a more homogenous sample population, only women were included. To examine the neural correlates of relevant cognitive processes in patients on sick leave >90 days due to work-related LTSL, recently diagnosed patients with major depression Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV criteria, untreated), and healthy controls (n?=?10, each group), a 2-back working memory task and a visual long-term memory task were administered during fMRI scanning. HPA axis functioning was investigated using a diurnal curve of saliva cortisol and a dexamethasone suppression test. Task performance was comparable among the three groups. Multivariate image analysis revealed that both memory tasks engaged a similar brain network in all three groups, including the prefrontal and parietal cortex. During the 2-back task, LTSL patients had significant frontal hypoactivation compared to controls and patients with depression. Saliva cortisol measurements showed a flattening of the diurnal rythmicity in LTSL patients compared to patients with depression and healthy contols. Taken together, these findings indicate that work stress-related LTSL and major depression are dissociable in terms of frontal activation and diurnal cortisol rhythmicity.     

Flying without navigational aids – The case of commercial motorcyclists in Minna,Nigeria

The study investigated motorcycle operators in Minna city with a view to observing the riders’ signaling behavior and the presence or absence of navigational aids and their usage. The study was carried out in three stages. First, a 15 min rapid survey of 3135 motorcyclists was carried at both ends of three pre-selected busy roads with emphasis on observing the possession of navigational aids by the motorcyclists. Secondly, another set of study on signaling behavior was carried out in another three junctions within a 15 min period and finally an interview was conducted among 120 commercial and private motorcyclists from commercials and office parks for a more detailed study. The mean age and mean year of riding experience of the commercial motorcyclists were 28 (SD = 5.9) and 4 years (SD = 2.1) respectively compared to 32 (SD = 7.4) and 7 (SD = 7.4) years for private motorcyclists. The findings show that 18.1% of the motorcyclists had no trafficators and as high as 85.3% had no side mirrors. Of the 626 motorcyclists studied for signaling behavior, 574 (91.7%) failed to trafficate while turning at junctions. It was also found that 65 (54.2%) of the 120 motorcyclists interviewed had accidents with their motorcycles. Chi Squared test shows that effect of possession of side mirror on accident experience is not statistically significant (χ² = 2.11, p = .349) while possession of trafficators (χ² = 5.99, p = .050) and driving license (χ² = 12.603, p = .000) are statistically significant. The study revealed that 61.5% of motorcyclists that have trafficators had experienced accidents which points out the fact that riding behavior is more critical in road safety than having a perfect vehicle. The study recommends, among others, that the Federal Road Safety Corps and Vehicle Inspection Officers should be as strict with the motorcyclists as they are with the motorists in enforcing road safety.     

Comprehension and utilisation of pointing gestures and gazing in dog–human communication in relatively complex situations

The aim of the present investigation was to study the visual communication between humans and dogs in relatively complex situations. In the present research, we have modelled more lifelike situations in contrast to previous studies which often relied on using only two potential hiding locations and direct association between the communicative signal and the signalled object. In Study 1, we have provided the dogs with four potential hiding locations, two on each side of the experimenter to see whether dogs are able to choose the correct location based on the pointing gesture. In Study 2, dogs had to rely on a sequence of pointing gestures displayed by two different experimenters. We have investigated whether dogs are able to recognise an ‘indirect signal’, that is, a pointing toward a pointer. In Study 3, we have examined whether dogs can understand indirect information about a hidden object and direct the owner to the particular location. Study 1 has revealed that dogs are unlikely to rely on extrapolating precise linear vectors along the pointing arm when relying on human pointing gestures. Instead, they rely on a simple rule of following the side of the human gesturing. If there were more targets on the same side of the human, they showed a preference for the targets closer to the human. Study 2 has shown that dogs are able to rely on indirect pointing gestures but the individual performances suggest that this skill may be restricted to a certain level of complexity. In Study 3, we have found that dogs are able to localise the hidden object by utilising indirect human signals, and they are able to convey this information to their owner.     

Does the A-not-B error in adult pet dogs indicate sensitivity to human communication?

Recent dog-infant comparisons have indicated that the experimenter's communicative signals in object hide-and-search tasks increase the probability of perseverative (A-not-B) errors in both species (Topál et al. 2009). These behaviourally similar results, however, might reflect different mechanisms in dogs and in children. Similar errors may occur if the motor response of retrieving the object during the A trials cannot be inhibited in the B trials or if the experimenter's movements and signals toward the A hiding place in the B trials ('sham-baiting') distract the dogs' attention. In order to test these hypotheses, we tested dogs similarly to Topál et al. (2009) but eliminated the motor search in the A trials and 'sham-baiting' in the B trials. We found that neither an inability to inhibit previously rewarded motor response nor insufficiencies in their working memory and/or attention skills can explain dogs' erroneous choices. Further, we replicated the finding that dogs have a strong tendency to commit the A-not-B error after ostensive-communicative hiding and demonstrated the crucial effect of socio-communicative cues as the A-not-B error diminishes when location B is ostensively enhanced. These findings further support the hypothesis that the dogs' A-not-B error may reflect a special sensitivity to human communicative cues. Such object-hiding and search tasks provide a typical case for how susceptibility to human social signals could (mis)lead domestic dogs.     

Understanding “silver” consumers through cognitive age,health condition,financial status,and personal values: Empirical evidence from the world's most mature market Japan

Older consumers remain under‐researched, especially in Japan, the country most severely affected by demographic change with a rapidly aging and shrinking population. This paper aims at a better understanding of Japanese older consumers through cognitive age, health condition, financial status, and personal values. This study is the first one using these variables together on a sample of 316 older Japanese consumers. The age perception of the respondents was found on average 8 years younger than their actual chronological age, in line with the assumption of cognitive age being universal. Four groups were identified revealing a decrease in the difference between chronological and cognitive age with lower levels of health and wealth. The difference was found higher for people feeling healthy and poor than for people feeling in poor health and wealthy, thus indicating that feeling in good health was having somewhat more impact on the difference between actual and cognitive age than feeling wealthy. Respondents gave top ranking to “warm relationships with others”, second importance to “security”, and third importance to “fun and enjoyment in life”. The rankings of “excitement”, “fun and enjoyment in life”, and “sense of accomplishment” were showing a significant decrease of importance with higher cognitive age groups. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

It depends on how you look at it: Scanpath comparison in multiple dimensions with MultiMatch, a vector-based approach

Eye movement sequences??or scanpaths??vary depending on the stimulus characteristics and the task (Foulsham & Underwood Journal of Vision, 8(2), 6:1?C17, 2008; Land, Mennie, & Rusted, Perception, 28, 1311?C1328, 1999). Common methods for comparing scanpaths, however, are limited in their ability to capture both the spatial and temporal properties of which a scanpath consists. Here, we validated a new method for scanpath comparison based on geometric vectors, which compares scanpaths over multiple dimensions while retaining positional and sequential information (Jarodzka, Holmqvist, & Nystr?m, Symposium on Eye-Tracking Research and Applications (pp. 211?C218), 2010). ??MultiMatch?? was tested in two experiments and pitted against ScanMatch (Cristino, Math?t, Theeuwes, & Gilchrist, Behavior Research Methods, 42, 692?C700, 2010), the most comprehensive adaptation of the popular Levenshtein method. In Experiment 1, we used synthetic data, demonstrating the greater sensitivity of MultiMatch to variations in spatial position. In Experiment 2, real eye movement recordings were taken from participants viewing sequences of dots, designed to elicit scanpath pairs with commonalities known to be problematic for algorithms (e.g., when one scanpath is shifted in locus or when fixations fall on either side of an AOI boundary). The results illustrate the advantages of a multidimensional approach, revealing how two scanpaths differ. For instance, if one scanpath is the reverse copy of another, the difference is in the direction but not the positions of fixations; or if a scanpath is scaled down, the difference is in the length of the saccadic vectors but not in the overall shape. As well as having enormous potential for any task in which consistency in eye movements is important (e.g., learning), MultiMatch is particularly relevant for ??eye movements to nothing?? in mental imagery and embodiment-of-cognition research, where satisfactory scanpath comparison algorithms are lacking.     

Branching time, indeterminism and tense logic

This paper deals with the historical and philosophical background of the introduction of the notion of branching time in philosophical logic as it is revealed in the hitherto unpublished mail-correspondence between Saul Kripke and A.N. Prior in the late 1950s. The paper reveals that the idea was first suggested by Saul Kripke in a letter to A.N. Prior, dated September 3, 1958, and it is shown how the elaboration of the idea in the course of the correspondence was intimately intervowen with considerations of how to represent indeterminism and of the adequacy of tensed logic in light of special relativity. The correspondence underpins the point that Prior??s later development of branching time may be understood as a crucial part of his attempt at the formulating a conceptual framework integrating basic human notions of time and free choice.