Spatial constraints on attention to speech in the blind

When sighted persons try to identify one of two speech utterances coming from different directions, they display both a frontal position advantage, i.e., better recognition of inputs from the front than of those from the rear, and a right-side advantage, better recognition of inputs from the right than of those from the left. The present study demonstrates a dissociation of the two effects in blind subjects (N = 10) who showed no frontal position advantage together with a right-side advantage superior to that of control sighted subjects (N = 16). There was no systematic difference between congenitally blind subjects and noncongenitals. The absence of frontal position advantage in the blind is consistent with the notion that this effect originates in the habit of sighted listeners to orient toward the source of heard speech. The occurrence of at least normal right-side advantage in the blind does not support recent suggestions of reduced lateralization of language functions in such subjects.     

Teacher ratings of children's problem and competence behaviors: Normative and parametric characteristics

Teacher-rated adjustment differences among young elementary school children from (a) a recent sample and a 1974 cohort, and (b) urban/suburban, male/female, and grade-level subgroups were examined. A problem behavior checklist (Classroom Adjustment Rating Scale) and a school competence measure (Health Resources Inventory) for 974 children from 5 urban and 5 suburban schools were completed by 101 first- to fourth-grade teachers. Children from the more current cohort were rated as significantly more maladjusted than those from the earlier sample on 8 of 10 adjustment variables. In the recent sample, girls and suburban children evidenced a greater number of school competencies and fewer problem behaviors than boys and urban children, respectively. The implications of these findings for the future use of the teacher rating scales are discussed.     

Processing of lexical ambiguities in aphasia

Wernicke's and Broca's aphasics performed a lexical decision task wherein they had to decide whether the third word of an auditorily presented triplet series of words was "real" or not. The first and third words of each triplet were related to one, both, or neither meaning of the second word which was semantically ambiguous. The performance pattern of the Wernicke's aphasics was similar to that of normals. They showed selective access to different meanings of the ambiguous words, as demonstrated by the fact that the context provided by the first word affected semantic facilitation on the third word. In contrast, Broca's aphasics showed no semantic facilitation in any priming condition. These results are consistent with previous findings, suggesting that semantic representations may be largely spared in Wernicke's aphasics. The failure of the Broca's aphasics to demonstrate facilitation is consistent with the view that they have a processing deficit in automatically accessing the lexical representation of words.     

Social learning and collective choice

To be pertinent to democratic practice, collective choice functions need not apply to all possible constellations of individual preference, but only to those that are humanly possible in an appropriate sense. The present paper develops a theory of humanly possible preference within the context of the mathematical theory of learning. The theory of preference is then exploited in an attempt to resolve Arrow's voting paradox through restriction of the domain of majoritarian choice functions.     

Separate verbal memory and naming deficits in attention deficit disorder and reading disability

In this study, verbal memory and naming abilities were investigated in reading disabled (RD) and control children who were characterized according to the presence or absence of attention deficit disorder (ADD). Results indicate that deficits in learning and memory for recently acquired information occur as a function of ADD rather than RD while deficits in naming are specific to RD rather than ADD. We conclude that ADD is a major source of additional and separate cognitive morbidity in RD children.     

Specific language impairment in children: A cross-linguistic study

A common profile in English-speaking specifically language-impaired children is a moderate deficit across a broad range of linguistic features and a more marked, selective impairment in using bound morphemes and components of the verb system. To gain a clearer understanding of the nature of these more serious problems, we examined the speech of monolingual Italian-speaking as well as English-speaking children with specific language impairment. The evidence suggested that phonological factors contributed significantly to these children's extraordinary problems with particular linguistic features. Contrary to expectations, other marked deficits seemed more related to the opacity of the rules involved and homonymity with other morphemes than to problems with formal grammatical devices in general or components of the verb system in particular.     

The effects of continuous phonation on Xenon-inhalation air curves (of the kind used in deriving regional cerebral blood flow)

Regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) may be measured with inhalation techniques that use end-expired values of radioactivity to estimate the isotope concentration in arterial blood. These end-expired data are used as an input function in a mathematical equation to derive rCBF. End-expired air is assumed normally to be in equilibrium with the arterial blood at the alveolar surface of the lung during regular (passive) breathing; this assumption may not be valid during continuous phonation. We therefore have analyzed breathing (inhalation/exhalation) patterns and end-expired radioactivity (¹³³Xe) during (1) speaking, (2) singing, and (3) humming of the national anthem, and also during (4) passive breathing. Statistically significant differences in breathing patterns were measured between a group of nonmusicians and two groups of musicians (singers) during the phonation tasks: The nonmusicians breathed more often (and more rapidly) and exhibited less variability in their breathing patterns than did the musicians. Notwithstanding these differences, the shapes of smoothed functions derived from the end-expired values were not influenced appreciably during phonation (except possibly during talking). The latter finding suggests that estimates of rCBF derived with these data should not be confounded seriously because of the continuous phonation.