The interplay of meaning,sound, and syntax in sentence production

A discussion of modularity in language production processes, with special emphasis on processes for retrieving words and building syntactic structures for a to-be-uttered sentence, is presented. The authors' 1st goal was to assess the extent to which information processing is encapsulated between different processing stages. In particular, they assessed whether the input from one processing stage to the next is minimal and whether the flow of information in the system is strictly unidirectional. On the basis of the reviewed evidence, they conclude that both assumptions have to be revised. Their 2nd goal was to propose an altemative framework that does not assume strict encapsulation but that maintains multiple levels of integration for production.     

Auditory abnormalities in autism: toward functional distinctions among findings

Recently, findings on a wide range of auditory abnormalities among individuals with autism have been reported. To date, functional distinctions among these varied findings are poorly established. Such distinctions should be of interest to clinicians and researchers alike given their potential therapeutic and experimental applications. This review suggests three general trends among these findings as a starting point for future analyses. First, studies of auditory perception of linguistic and social auditory stimuli among individuals with autism generally have found impaired perception versus normal controls. Such findings may correlate with impaired language and communication skills and social isolation observed among individuals with autism. Second, studies of auditory perception of pitch and music among individuals with autism generally have found enhanced perception versus normal controls. These findings may correlate with the restrictive and highly focused behaviors observed among individuals with autism. Third, findings on the auditory perception of non-linguistic, non-musical stimuli among autism patients resist any generalized conclusions. Ultimately, as some researchers have already suggested, the distinction between impaired global processing and enhanced local processing may prove useful in making sense of apparently discordant findings on auditory abnormalities among individuals with autism.     

Mathematical modeling of movement between residential placements: A systems analytic approach to understanding systems of care

Although the concept of a system of care for children and adolescents with a severe emotional disturbance has become core to treatment philosophy, very little research has focused on systems of care as systems. This article attempts to contribute to the development of a systems research paradigm in children's mental health as well as to add to the substantive knowledge of utilization of and movement between residential options in a statewide multiagency service delivery system. Information on residential placement gathered at six month intervals over a three year period is used to develop a mathematical model of the system of care. This model can help administrators to predict future needs for residential care, and to project probable outcomes of alternative strategies for meeting the needs of these children and adolescents.     

Medical Students’ Creation of Original Poetry,Comics, and Masks to Explore Professional Identity Formation

Introduction. This study examines differences in students’ perceived value of three artmaking modalities (poetry, comics, masks) and whether the resulting creative projects offer similar or different insights into medical students’ professional identity formation. Methods. Mixed-methods design using a student survey, student narrative comments and qualitative analysis of students’ original work. Results. Poetry and comics stimulated insight, but masks were more enjoyable and stress-reducing. All three art modalities expressed tension between personal and professional identities. Discussion. Regardless of type of artmaking, students express concern about encroachments of training on personal identity but hoped that personal and professional selves could be integrated.

     

Does Motivation Impact OCD Symptom Severity? An Exploration of Longitudinal Effects

Understanding the role of patient motivation in OCD treatment is of clinical importance given the requisite autonomous role of patients in Exposure and Response Prevention. The present study investigated state- and trait-like relations between three variables: two previously established motivational constructs, readiness to change (RTC) and committed action (CA), derived from the University of Rhode Island Change Assessment, and OCD symptom severity as measured by the self-report Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS-SR). Utilizing a random-intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM) design, we assessed autoregressive, within-time correlations, and cross-lagged effects of RTC, CA, and Y-BOCS-SR scores at admission, month 1 of treatment, and discharge from an intensive/residential treatment program for OCD. Results revealed significant autoregressive (i.e., state-like) effects for CA and Y-BOCS-SR, negative within-time correlations between state CA and Y-BOCS-SR across all time points, a positive within-time correlation between state CA and RTC at admission, and a cross-lagged effect between state Y-BOCS-SR at month 1 of treatment and state RTC at discharge. Results also demonstrated that the stability of the RTC variable was attributable to trait-like factors in the present sample. This study is novel in its use of RI-CLPM in an OCD sample and represents an important addition to the literature on the longitudinal impacts of dynamic constructs of motivation. Our findings may provide future researchers with strategies to supplement ERP with CA-driven motivational interviewing.     

The role of grammatical class on word recognition

The double dissociation between noun and verb processing, well documented in the neuropsychological literature, has not been supported in imaging studies. Recent imaging studies, in fact, suggest that once confounding with semantics is eliminated, grammatical class effects only emerge as a consequence of building frames. Here we assess this hypothesis behaviorally in two visual word recognition experiments. In Experiment 1, participants made lexical decisions on verb targets. We manipulated the grammatical class of the prime words (either nouns or verbs and always introduced in a minimal phrasal context, i.e., “the + N” or “to + V”), and their semantic similarity to a target (related vs. unrelated). We found reliable effects of grammatical class, and no interaction with semantic similarity. Experiment 2 further explored this grammatical class effect, using verb targets preceded by semantically unrelated verb vs. noun primes. In one condition, prime words were presented as bare words; in the other, they were presented in the minimal phrasal context used in Experiment 1. Grammatical class effects only arose in the latter but not in the former condition thus providing evidence that word recognition does not recruit grammatical class information unless it is provided to the system.     

Different Associations of Health Related Quality of Life with Pain,Psychological Distress and Coping Strategies in Patients with Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Inflammatory Bowel Disorder

The primary aim of this study was to measure psychological distress, pain severity, health related quality of life (QOL) and pain coping strategies in patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and ulcerative colitis (UC). A second aim was to determine the influence of somatic and psychological variables on health related QOL. Eighty-eight IBS and 66 UC patients completed the Irritable Bowel Syndrome Quality of Life Questionnaire (IBSQOL), Pain Severity Scale of West Haven Yale Multidimensional Pain Inventory (WHYMPY), Symptom Checklist-90-R (SCL-90-R) and Coping Strategies Questionnaire (CSQ). T-tests and GLM Analysis of Covariance were used for statistical analysis. IBS patients had significantly higher levels of psychological distress, pain severity and maladaptive pain coping strategies (catastrophization), and lower QOL than UC patients. Variance of QOL in IBS was explained for the most part by catastrophization (15%), then by psychological distress (8%), and for the less part by pain severity (5%). In UC, pain severity explained 21%, psychological distress 8%, and catastrophization 3% of the variance of QOL. These results suggest there are differences between IBS and UC patients in the role of physical and psychological factors in QOL and emphasize the importance of cognitive processes in IBS.     

Memory in dreams1

In this paper the author discusses a specific type of dreams encountered in her clinical experience, which in her view provide an opportunity of reconstructing the traumatic emotional events of the patient’s past. In 1900, Freud described a category of dreams – which he called ‘biographical dreams’– that reflect historical infantile experience without the typical defensive function. Many authors agree that some traumatic dreams perform a function of recovery and working through. Bion contributed to the amplification of dream theory by linking it to the theory of thought and emphasizing the element of communication in dreams as well as their defensive aspect. The central hypothesis of this paper is that the predominant aspect of such dreams is the communication of an experience which the dreamer has in the dream but does not understand. It is often possible to reconstruct, and to help the patient to comprehend and make sense of, the emotional truth of the patient’s internal world, which stems from past emotional experience with primary objects. The author includes some clinical examples and references to various psychoanalytic and neuroscientific conceptions of trauma and memory. She discusses a particular clinical approach to such dreams and how the analyst should listen to them.     

Emotion words, regardless of polarity, have a processing advantage over neutral words

Despite increasing interest in the interface between emotion and cognition, the role of emotion in cognitive tasks is unclear. According to one hypothesis, negative valence is more relevant for survival and is associated with a general slowdown of the processing of stimuli, due to a defense mechanism that freezes activity in the face of threat. According to a different hypothesis which does not posit a privileged role for the aversive system, valence, regardless of polarity, facilitates processing due to the relevance of both negative and positive stimuli for survival and for the attainment of goals. Here, we present evidence that emotional valence has an overall facilitatory role in the processing of verbal stimuli, providing support for the latter hypothesis. We found no asymmetry between negative and positive words and suggest that previous findings of such an asymmetry can be attributed to failure to control for a number of critical lexical variables and to a sampling bias.