Categorizing facial identities, emotions, and genders: attention to high- and low-spatial frequencies by children and adults

Three age groups of participants (5-6 years, 7-8 years, adults) matched faces on the basis of facial identity. The procedure involved either low- or high-pass filtered faces or hybrid faces composed from two faces associated with different spatial bandwidths. The comparison stimuli were unfiltered faces. In the three age groups, the data indicated a significant bias for processing of low-pass information in priority. In a second task, participants were asked to identify the emotion (smiling or grimacing) or gender (male or female) of hybrid high-pass/low-pass faces. Opposite results emerged in the two tasks irrespective of the age group; the gender discrimination task indicated a bias for low-pass information, and the emotion task indicated a bias for high-pass information. These differences suggest independent processing routes for functionally different types of information such as emotion, gender, and identity. These routes are already established by 5 years of age.     

Acquired surface alexia in Spanish: a case report

This paper reports a case study of acquired surface alexia in Spanish and discusses the most suitable tests to detect this syndrome in a writing system that is very regular for reading at the segmental and supra-segmental levels. Patient MM has surface alexia characterized by quantitatively good performance in reading words and pseudowords; accurate but slow and syllabic reading of words, nonwords and sentences; good performance in lexical decision tasks including words and nonwords; errors in lexical decision with pseudohomophones; and homophone confusions. This pattern of reading can be interpreted as a disorder in the lexical reading route and overdependence on the non-lexical route. We discuss nonlexical impairments and the interpretation of alexia and suggest tasks to identify surface alexia in a shallow orthography.     

Activation of adenosine receptors in the posterior cingulate cortex impairs memory retrieval in the rat

Adenosine A1 and A2A receptor agonists and antagonists have been reported to alter learning and memory. The aim of our study was to investigate the involvement of adenosinergic system in memory retrieval into posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) of Wistar rats. To clarify this question, we tested specifics agonist and antagonists of adenosine A1 and A2A receptors in rats submitted to a one-trial inhibitory avoidance task. The stimulation of adenosine A1 and A2A receptors by CPA and CGS21680, respectively, impaired memory retrieval for inhibitory avoidance task, into PCC. These findings provide behavioral evidence for the role of adenosinergic system in the memory retrieval into PCC.     

The role of parametric assumptions in adaptive Bayesian estimation

Variants of adaptive Bayesian procedures for estimating the 5% point on a psychometric function were studied by simulation. Bias and standard error were the criteria to evaluate performance. The results indicated a superiority of (a) uniform priors, (b) model likelihood functions that are odd symmetric about threshold and that have parameter values larger than their counterparts in the psychometric function, (c) stimulus placement at the prior mean, and (d) estimates defined as the posterior mean. Unbiasedness arises in only 10 trials, and 20 trials ensure constant standard errors. The standard error of the estimates equals 0.617 times the inverse of the square root of the number of trials. Other variants yielded bias and larger standard errors.     

The mental representation of verb-noun compounds in Italian: evidence from a multiple single-case study in aphasia

This study seeks information on the mental representation of Verb–Noun (VN) nominal compounds through neuropsychological methods. The lexical retrieval of compound nouns is tested in 30 aphasic patients using a visual confrontation naming task. The target names are VN compounds, Noun–Noun (NN) compounds, and long morphologically simple nouns (LSN). In order to check the ability to produce simple nouns and verbs in the same participants, a further visual confrontation naming task of objects and actions is used. Results of the study confirm that several patients with disproportionate verb deficit are also impaired in naming VN compounds. Data are in favor of a (de)compositional processing of compound words. A further group of patients is selectively more impaired with compound nouns than with comparably long simple nouns, irrespective of their VN or NN morphological structure. It is suggested that this impairment is to be ascribed to a specific disorder in retrieving two different lexemes with a single lexical entry.     

The New Orleans Forensic Aftercare Clinic: a seven year review of hospital discharged and jail diverted clients

This paper provides a review of the Forensic Aftercare Clinic Conditional Release Program (FAC), which has been operating since December, 1995, in New Orleans, LA. The FAC is a community based program that provides clinical, rehabilitative, and supervisory services to individuals who have been found not guilty by reason of insanity or unrestorably incompetent to proceed and who have been discharged from inpatient settings or diverted from jail settings and placed on conditional release by district court orders. 119 clients participated in FAC over a 7 year period. Forty-one (34.4%) had their conditional release revoked. Of the total population, 12 (10.1%) were re-arrested on at least one charge, 3 (2.4%) were arrested on felony charges, and 9 (7.6%) on misdemeanors. Only two of these charges were violent, resulting in no significant harm to victims. Twenty (16.8%) were hospitalized at least once due to relapse. Clients diverted from jail to community settings did not differ significantly on most variables from clients who were discharged from long-term hospitalization. Data related to public safety and client diversion demonstrate that clients, when appropriate, can be safely diverted to the community in lieu of hospitalization. The number of statewide clients who have been discharged from the forensic hospital into the community has increased steadily from 13 in 1995 to 29 in 2002, and statewide diversion clients have steadily increased from 0 in 1992 to 20 in 2002. The increase in statewide diversion clients and forensic discharges over this 7 year period indicates that stakeholders see the viability of the program as an alternative to as well as a step-down from long-term forensic hospitalization.     

Evidence for the substantia nigra pars compacta as an essential component of a memory system independent of the hippocampal memory system

The aim of the present study was to test if the nigrostriatal pathway is an essential component for a water maze cued task learning and if it works independently of the hippocampal memory system. This hypothesis was tested using an animal model of Parkinson's disease in which male Wistar rats were lesioned in the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc) by the intranigral infusion of 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP), thus causing a partial depletion of striatal dopamine. SNc-lesioned and sham-operated animals were implanted bilaterally with guide cannulae above the dorsal hippocampus in order to be tested after the administration of 0.4 microl 2% lidocaine or saline into this structure. The animals were tested in a spatial or in a cued version of the water maze, memory tasks previously reported to model hippocampal-dependent spatial/relational and striatal-dependent S-R learning, respectively. Hippocampal inactivation, but not SNc lesion, impaired learning and memory in the spatial version of the water maze. An opposite situation was observed with the cued version. No significant interaction was observed between the SNc lesion and hippocampal inactivation conditions affecting scores in the spatial or in the cued version of the water maze. These results suggest that the nigrostriatal pathway is an essential part of the memory system that processes S-R learning and that it works independently of the hippocampal memory system that processes spatial/relational memories.     

The otolaryngologist's role in management of hearing loss in infancy and childhood

This article reviews the role of the otolaryngologist-head and neck surgeon-in the diagnosis and treatment of hearing loss in infants and young children. The otolaryngologist is well-versed in the anatomy, physiology, and pathophysiology of the auditory system, as well as the craniofacial syndromes that can involve the head and neck in combination with deafness. In this paper, the various causes of congenital hearing loss are described, as well as the steps required for proper diagnosis. Finally, surgeries used by otolaryngologists to treat childhood hearing loss, their indications, and outcomes, are discussed.     

Cerebellar ataxia: quantitative assessment and cybernetic interpretation

To assess neuromotor disorders clinicians often rely on rating scales. Unfortunately, these scales lack the sensitivity and accuracy needed to detect the small changes in motor coordination that reflect the clinical progression of the disease on the basis of which treatment programmes can be adjusted. As a contribution to this topic, the present paper proposes a straightforward kinematic and kinetic analysis of reaching movements of patients with cerebellar ataxia in conjunction with a cybernetic interpretation of the data. The aim of the approach is to capture key deficits in the underlying motor control processes. We suggest that cerebellar ataxia may be characterized by defective feedforward control.