Neuromotor speech deficits in children and adults with spina bifida and hydrocephalus

Acquired cerebellar lesions are associated with motor speech deficits. Spina bifida with hydrocephalus (SBH) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that involves significant dysmorphology of the cerebellum. Videotaped narratives produced by 40 children and adults with SBH and their 40 age-matched controls were coded for three motor speech deficits: dysfluency, ataxic dysarthria (articulatory inaccuracy, prosodic excess, and phonatory-prosodic insufficiency) (Brown, Darley, & Aronson, 1970; Darley, Aronson, & Brown, 1969a), and speech rate. Individuals with SBH had more motor speech deficits than controls. Dysfluency was related to an interaction between chronological age and SBH. Speech rate was related independently to chronological age and SBH. Ataxic dysarthria was related to the biology of SBH, and was associated with both physical phenotype (level of spinal cord lesion) and medical history (number of shunt revisions). The data show that developmental as well as acquired lesions of the cerebellum disrupt motor speech, and add to the developmental role of the cerebellum in the automatization of motor skills, including speech.     

The role of gender in the clinical presentation of patients with borderline personality disorder

This study examined gender differences in the pattern of comorbid disorders and degree of impairment among outpatients with borderline personality disorder (BPD). A total of 130 outpatients with BPD were assessed for various lifetime impulse-related disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder and for indices of impairment. Compared with women with BPD, men with BPD reported significantly more lifetime substance abuse disorders, antisocial personality and met criteria of intermittent explosive disorder that did not overlap with a diagnosis of BPD. Women with BPD reported significantly more lifetime eating disorders than men with BPD. No gender differences were found in degree of overall impairment. These results suggest that male and female patients with BPD, although equally distressed, present with different lifetime patterns of impulse-related disorders.     

Phoneme frequency effects in jargon aphasia: a phonological investigation of nonword errors

This study investigates the nonwords produced by a jargon speaker, LT. Despite presenting with severe neologistic jargon, LT can produce discrete responses in picture naming tasks thus allowing the properties of his jargon to be investigated. This ability was exploited in two naming tasks. The first showed that LT's nonword errors are related to their targets despite being generally unrecognizable. This relatedness appears to be a general property of his errors suggesting that they are produced by lexical rather than nonlexical means. The second naming task used a set of stimuli controlled for their phonemic content. This allowed an investigation of target phonology at the level of individual phonemes. Nonword responses maintained the English distribution of consonants and showed a significant relationship to the target phonologies. A strong influence of phoneme frequency was identified. High frequency consonants showed a pattern of frequent but indiscriminate use. Low frequency consonants were realised less often but were largely restricted to target related contexts rarely appearing as error phonology. The findings are explained within a lexical activation network with the proposal that the resting levels of phoneme nodes are frequency sensitive. Predictions for the recovery of jargon aphasia and suggestions for future investigations are made.     

Perceptual sensitivity and motoric competence in 5- and 6-month-old infants

The authors explored whether 5- to 6-month-old infants were sensitive to perceptual information and how they used perception as a recognition cue to search for a hidden object. In addition, the authors categorized and examined infant grasp by developmental effectiveness to determine any impact on infant search behaviors. In a within-participants design, 20 infants were presented with a toy in 2 occluder conditions. The toy was hidden under either a thick, camouflaging cloth or a thin, semitransparent cloth. The data revealed significant effects of perceptual sensitivity, age, and motor sophistication on search tasks. The results suggest that motor competence might be a limiting factor in infants' abilities to link motoric responses to notions about an object.     

Strategic influences on recollection in the exclusion task: Electrophysiological evidence

One assumption underlying the use of the exclusion task as part of the process dissociation procedure is that studied items are successfully excluded only when they are recollected. The present study employed event-related potentials (ERPs) to demonstrate that successful exclusion does not necessarily require recollection. In two experiments, the study tasks for to-be-excluded items were identical, but the tasks employed withtarget items differed, giving better memory for these items in Experiment 1 than in Experiment 2. Successfully excluded items elicited the ERP signature for recollection—theleft parietal old/new effect—in Experiment 2 only. These findings indicate that the subjects adopted different retrieval strategies in the two experiments. It is suggested that they made more use of source information about to-be-excluded items in the second experiment than in the first.     

Applicant reactions to face-to-face and technology-mediated interviews: a field investigation

This field study examined applicant reactions (N = 802) toward face-to-face as compared with technology-mediated interviews (through videoconferencing or by telephone) for 346 organizations. Face-to-face interviews were perceived as more fair and led to higher job acceptance intentions than were videoconferencing and telephone interviews. Perceived interview outcomes were higher with face-to-face and telephone interviews over videoconferencing. Self-monitoring moderated the relationship between interview medium and perceptions of fairness. Specifically, this relationship was (a). positive for face-to-face, (b). negative for telephone, and (c). nonsignificant for videoconferencing interviews. Moreover, the number of offers an applicant received moderated the relationship between interview medium over, and perceived fairness. The relationship between number of offers and perceived fairness was positive for face-to-face and negative for technology-mediated interviews.     

Depression and HIV infection: impact on immune function and disease progression

Can psychological factors, such as depression, affect human immunodeficiency virus progression? HIV infection is viewed as a chronic illness in which those infected often confront a number of emotional challenges and physical health and disease-related issues. Over the past 20 years, there has been increasing evidence that depression and other mood-related disturbances are commonly observed among HIV-positive individuals. There is also mounting data showing that depressive symptoms might further impact upon specific elements of immune system functioning and influence quality of life and health status. This paper will highlight studies examining the prevalence of depression during HIV infection and review some of the evidence examining the impact of depressive symptoms on immune function and HIV disease progression.     

Increasing attendance at colorectal cancer screening: testing the efficacy of a mailed, psychoeducational intervention in a community sample of older adults.

This article describes a trial of a psychoeducational intervention designed to modify negative attitudes toward flexible sigmoidoscopy screening and thereby increase screening attendance. The intervention materials addressed the multiple barriers shown to be associated with participation in earlier studies. Adults ages 55-64 (N = 2,966), in a "harder-to-reach" group were randomized either to receive an intervention brochure or to a standard invitation group. Attitudes and expectations were assessed by questionnaire, and attendance at the clinic was recorded. Compared with controls, the intervention group had less negative attitudes, anticipated a more positive experience, and had a 3.6% higher level of attendance. These results indicate that psychoeducational interventions can provide an effective means of modifying attitudes and increasing rates of screening attendance.     

From what to where: neuropsychological evidence for implicit interactions between object- and space- based attention

Three experiments examined nonspatial extinction in G.K., a patient with bilateral parietal damage. Experiment 1 demonstrated nonspatial extinction (poor detection of a weak relative to a stronger perceptual group), even when the stronger group was less complex than the weaker group. Experiment 2 showed improved report of a letter falling at the location of the stronger group, but explicit judgments of the location of the letter were at chance. Experiment 3 replicated the object-cuing benefit, though G.K. could not discriminate whether a letter fell at the same location as the stronger perceptual group. The data indicate coupling between object- and space-based attention, so that spatial attention is drawn to the location occupied by the winner of object-based competition for selection. In this case, what cues where . This coupling operates implicitly, even when explicit location judgments are impaired.