Voice Onset Time in Ataxic Dysarthria

In eight patients with a purely ataxic syndrome due to cerebellar atrophy the voice onset time (VOT) of word-initial stop consonants was measured at the acoustic signal. The subjects had been asked to produce sentence utterances including either one of the German minimal pair cognates “Daten” (/datn/, “data”) and “Taten” (/tatn/, “deeds”). In addition, a master tape comprising the target words from patients and controls in randomized order was played to six listeners for perceptual evaluation. Two major findings emerged. First, the cerebellar subjects presented with a reduced categorical distinction of the VOT of voiced and unvoiced stop consonants. Second, the patients' target words with initial unvoiced plosive gave rise to a significantly increased number of misassignments at perceptual evaluation. To some extent comparable VOT disruptions have been noted in apraxia of speech and basal ganglia disorders. Thus, different pathomechanisms might result in similar VOT abnormalities.     

Speeded detection and increased distraction in fear of spiders: evidence from eye movements

Anxiety patients exhibit attentional biases toward threat, which have often been demonstrated as increased distractibility by threatening stimuli. In contrast, speeded detection of threat has rarely been shown. Therefore, the authors studied both phenomena in 3 versions of a visual search task while eye movements were recorded continuously. Spider-fearful individuals and nonanxious control participants participated in a target search task, an odd-one-out search task, and a category search task. Evidence for disorder-specific increased distraction by threat was found in all tasks, whereas speeded threat detection did not occur in the target search task. The implications of these findings for cognitive theories of anxiety are discussed, particularly in relation to the concept of disengagement from threat.     

Independent effects of temporal expectation and stimulus intensity in audition

Temporal orienting—that is, selective attention to instants in time—has been shown to modulate performance in terms of faster responses in a variety of paradigms. Electrophysiological recordings have shown that temporal orienting modulates neural processing at early, probably perceptual, and late, probably decision- or response-related, stages. Recently, it was shown that the effect of temporal orienting on early auditory brain potentials is independent of the effect of the physical sound feature intensity. This indicates that temporal orienting might not affect stimulus processing by increasing the sensory gain of attended stimuli. In the present study, we investigated whether the independence of temporal-orienting and sound-intensity effects could be replicated behaviorally. Sequences were presented that were either rhythmic, most likely creating temporal expectations, or arrhythmic, presumably not creating such expectations. As hypothesized, the main effects of temporal expectation and sound intensity on reaction times were independent (Experiment 1). The exact pattern of results was replicated with a slightly altered paradigm (Experiment 2) and with a different kind of task (Experiment 3). In sum, these results corroborate the notion that the effect of temporal orienting might not rely on the same processes as the effect of sound intensity does.     

Gender constructions from a project on sex offenders

Abstract

The four-year group therapy of 16 sex offenders in prison was videotaped, and 21 sessions were carefully transcribed and analysed by means of conversation analysis and analysis of metaphor and narration. These qualitative methods are apt for verbal data and can be combined with psychoanalytic thinking in a productive way. New forms of process analysis can be developed. The results presented here are selected to relate to the topic of how the imprisoned group therapy participants constructed “gender” by ways of speaking about themselves, women, and their victims, young girls. The results show that it would be a mistake to think of these ways of speaking as if they could be ignored in favour of “deeper” motives, lying “behind” the words. Our results show how unconscious constructions of gender are not beyond language, but in language. “Doing gender” is a conversational practice.     

Tracking the speech signal – Time-locked MEG signals during perception of ultra-fast and moderately fast speech in blind and in sighted listeners

Blind people can learn to understand speech at ultra-high syllable rates (ca. 20 syllables/s), a capability associated with hemodynamic activation of the central-visual system. To further elucidate the neural mechanisms underlying this skill, magnetoencephalographic (MEG) measurements during listening to sentence utterances were cross-correlated with time courses derived from the speech signal (envelope, syllable onsets and pitch periodicity) to capture phase-locked MEG components (14 blind, 12 sighted subjects; speech rate = 8 or 16 syllables/s, pre-defined source regions: auditory and visual cortex, inferior frontal gyrus). Blind individuals showed stronger phase locking in auditory cortex than sighted controls, and right-hemisphere visual cortex activity correlated with syllable onsets in case of ultra-fast speech. Furthermore, inferior-frontal MEG components time-locked to pitch periodicity displayed opposite lateralization effects in sighted (towards right hemisphere) and blind subjects (left). Thus, ultra-fast speech comprehension in blind individuals appears associated with changes in early signal-related processing mechanisms both within and outside the central-auditory terrain.     

The neural correlates of reward-related trial-and-error learning: an fMRI study with a probabilistic learning task

This fMRI study investigated the neural correlates of reward-related trial-and-error learning in association with changing degrees of stimulus-outcome predictabilities. We found that decreasing predictability was associated with increasing activation in a frontoparietal network. Only maximum predictability was associated with signal decreases across the learning process. The receipt of monetary reward revealed activation in the striatum and associated frontoparietal regions. Present data indicate that during reward-related learning, high uncertainty forces areas relevant for cognitive control to remain activated. In contrast, learning on the basis of predictable stimulus-outcome associations enables the brain to reduce resources in association with the processes of prediction.     

Whose “Storm and Stress” Is It? Parent and Child Reports of Personality Development in the Transition to Early Adolescence

The present study investigated Big Five personality trait development in the transition to early adolescence (from the fifth to eighth grade). Personality traits were assessed in 2,761 (47% female) students over a 3‐year period of time. Youths’ self‐reports and parent ratings were used to test for cross‐informant agreement. Acquiescent responding and measurement invariance were established with latent variable modeling. Growth curve models revealed three main findings: (a) Normative mean‐level changes occurred for youths’ self‐report data and parent ratings with modest effects in both cases. (b) Agreeableness and Openness decreased for self‐reports and parent ratings, whereas data source differences were found for Conscientiousness (decreased for self‐reports and remained stable for parent ratings), Extraversion (increased for self‐reports and decreased for parent ratings), and Neuroticism (remained stable for self‐reports and decreased for parent ratings). (c) Girls showed a more mature personality overall (self‐reports and parent ratings revealed higher levels of Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness) and became more extraverted in the middle of adolescence (self‐reports). Personality changes modestly during early adolescence whereby change does not occur in the direction of maturation, and substantial differences exist between parent ratings and self‐reports.