Colateralization of Broca's area and the visual word form area in left-handers: fMRI evidence

Language production has been found to be lateralized in the left hemisphere (LH) for 95% of right-handed people and about 75% of left-handers. The prevalence of atypical right hemispheric (RH) or bilateral lateralization for reading and colateralization of production with word reading laterality has never been tested in a large sample. In this study, we scanned 57 left-handers who had previously been identified as being clearly left (N = 30), bilateral (N = 7) or clearly right (N = 20) dominant for speech on the basis of fMRI activity in the inferior frontal gyrus (pars opercularis/pars triangularis) during a silent word generation task. They were asked to perform a lexical decision task, in which words were contrasted against checkerboards, to test the lateralization of reading in the ventral occipitotemporal region. Lateralization indices for both tasks correlated significantly (r = 0.59). The majority of subjects showed most activity during lexical decision in the hemisphere that was identified as their word production dominant hemisphere. However, more than half of the sample (N = 31) had bilateral activity for the lexical decision task without a clear dominant role for either the LH or RH, and three showed a crossed frontotemporal lateralization pattern. These findings have consequences for neurobiological models relating phonological and orthographic processes, and for lateralization measurements for clinical purposes.     

Plunging into the pool of death: imagining a dangerous outcome influences distance perception

We examined whether manipulating the imagined consequences of falling would influence the perception of height, distance, and size. In experiment 1, height and size perception were measured when participants stood at a short height (0.89 m) or a medium height (1.91 m) above either an empty pool or a pool filled with a bed of nails. Participants who viewed the bed of nails and imagined falling into it estimated both the height as taller and the size of the bed of nails as larger than participants who imagined falling into an empty pool. In a second experiment, participants overestimated the horizontal ground distance to and across the bed of nails after being told to imagine jumping over it. Overall, these experiments suggest that costs associated with imagined actions can influence the perception of both vertical and horizontal extents that are not inherently dangerous.     

The Fabric of Thought: Priming Tactile Properties During Reading Influences Direct Tactile Perception

The present studies examined whether implied tactile properties during language comprehension influence subsequent direct tactile perception, and the specificity of any such effects. Participants read sentences that implicitly conveyed information regarding tactile properties (e.g., Grace tried on a pair of thick corduroy pants while shopping) that were either related or unrelated to fabrics and varied in implied texture (smooth, medium, rough). After reading each sentence, participants then performed an unrelated rating task during which they felt and rated the texture of a presented fabric. Results demonstrated that the texture properties implied in sentences influence direct tactile perception. Specifically, after reading about a smooth or rough texture, subsequent fabric ratings became notably smoother or rougher, respectively. However, we also show that there was some specificity to these effects: Fabric‐related sentences elicited more specific and interactive effects on subsequent ratings. Together, we demonstrate that under certain circumstances, language comprehension can prime tactile representations and affect direct tactile perception. Results are discussed with regard to the nature and scope of multimodal mental simulation during reading.     

Sharing differences: The inductive route to social identity formation

A dominant assumption in social science is that shared similarities are the foundation for social categorization and identification. Accordingly, heterogeneity should hinder social identity formation. This paper argues the opposite can also be true: in heterogeneous groups, strong social identities can be built on expressions of individuality (inductive social identity formation), instead of shared similarities (deductive social identity formation). Two experiments manipulate social identity formation (deductive vs. inductive social identity formation) and support this idea. Study 1 shows that in heterogeneous groups, inductive social identity formation can result in higher identification and perceived entitativity than deductive social identity formation. Study 2 manipulates heterogeneity and confirms that while deduction of a social identity fosters a strong sense of identification in homogeneous groups, in heterogeneous groups a strong sense of identification can be brought about through induction. This pattern is also visible in real within-group cooperation.     

Help Me Play! Parental Behaviors,Child Temperament,and Preschool Peer Play

Social competence is a critical developmental milestone for preschoolers. Because play is the primary activity through which preschoolers interact socially with peers, it serves as an excellent indicator of social competence. The development of social competence in preschoolers is complex and multifaceted. In order to capture this complexity, we used Belsky’s differential susceptibility hypothesis as a framework for examining the contributions of child temperament and parenting styles in the prediction of peer interactive play behaviors. Using parent ratings of a sample of 44 preschool-age children, we hypothesized that child temperament (specifically, reactivity and regulation) acts as a susceptibility factor in the relationship between parenting styles (authoritarian and authoritative) and child peer play behaviors (disruptive and interactive). Our findings indicated that child reactivity moderated the relationship between authoritarian parenting style and both play outcomes, suggesting that reactivity serves as a potential susceptibility factor. More specifically, children with high reactivity who had more authoritarian parents demonstrated higher levels of disruptive play and lower levels of interactive play. Regulation did not act as a susceptibility factor in our sample. Findings are discussed in terms of implications for practice and in terms of an approach that considers temperament (specifically reactivity) and parenting behaviors in preschool assessment and intervention efforts. Additionally, we discuss how our findings partially support the differential susceptibility hypothesis.     

Turning back the hands of time: Autobiographical memories in dementia cued by a museum setting

The current study examined the effects of cuing autobiographical memory retrieval in 12 older participants with dementia through immersion into a historically authentic environment that recreated the material and cultural context of the participants’ youth. Participants conversed in either an everyday setting (control condition) or a museum setting furnished in early twentieth century style (experimental condition) while being presented with condition matched cues. Conversations were coded for memory content based on an adapted version of Levine, Svoboda, Hay, Winocur, and Moscovitch (2002) coding scheme. More autobiographical memories were recalled in the museum setting, and these memories were more elaborated, more spontaneous and included especially more internal (episodic) details compared to memories in the control condition. The findings have theoretical and practical implications by showing that the memories retrieved in the museum setting were both quantitatively and qualitatively different from memories retrieved during a control condition.     

the inventory of recent life experiences for cancer patients (IRLE-C): A decontaminated measure of cancer-based hassles

Abstract

Cancer is recognized to have multifaceted stressful impact on all areas of a patient's life. Researchers commonly use self-report questionnaires, intended to measure stressors objectively. However, the item-content and response-format of such scales often tap physical and mental responses to stress, thereby contaminating prediction of adverse impact. This article reports the development and validation of English and French versions of the Inventory of Recent Life Experiences for Cancer Patients (IRLE-C) which is designed to minimize such “criterion-contamination”. This entailed (1) avoiding items reflecting physical or subjective distress; (2) rating stressors for degree of exposure only; and (3) use of an innocuous scale title. The initial item pool was administered serially to a sample of 100 Francophone breast-cancer and prostate-cancer patients. To guard against inflating reliability and validity estimates through capitalizing on chance, we administered the 30-item final scale to an independent sample of 96 Francophone breast-cancer and prostate-cancer patients undergoing radiation treatment. Following the item-selection step, factorial structure and validity analyses were performed using the combined French-speaking sample (n= 196). Second, we administered the English version of the scale to an English-speaking sample of 127 cancer patients (various cancer sites and stages). The measure showed good internal consistency (.94 and .89 for the Francophone and Anglophone samples respectively) and met criteria for a 2-week test-retest reliability (r= .70 for the item-selection subsample and .80 for the cross-replication sub-sample). Correlations between the IRLE-C and the POMS Total Mood Disturbance were around .60 for both the Francophone and Anglophone samples. Avoiding contamination (through content and format) without losing its relationship to subjective distress, the IRLE-C appears a useful instrument for applying the stress-process model in oncology to establish clear distinctions among stressors, mediators, reactions, and consequences.     

Is egocentric space automatically encoded?

Using the criteria defined by Hasher and Zacks [Hasher, L., & Zacks, R. T. (1979). Automatic and effortful processes in memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 108(3), 356-388], three studies examined the effects of intent of memorization, dual task interference, old age, practice and individual differences on memory for egocentric positions. Results showed that dual task interference and old age slightly influenced memory for egocentric positions. Small but significant individual differences were also observed. However, intent of memorization and practice had no influence on accuracy. The findings demonstrate that encoding of egocentric space works rather automatically but nevertheless requires minimal attentional resources.     

The effect of old age on the learning of supraspan sequences

Two experiments examined age-related differences in sequence learning using computerized versions of the D. O. Hebb (1961) paradigm. In this learning task, the participant executes immediate serial recall of 24 supraspan sequences. Without the participants' knowledge, 1 sequence is presented several times. Repetition leads to improved recall of this repeated sequence relative to random sequences. Results showed a dissociation in age-related learning deficits depending on the nature of the to-be-remembered material. The effect of repetition is similar for younger and older adults with familiar and unfamiliar verbal material (words and pseudowords) but is significantly reduced in older adults when learning is assessed with a visuospatial version of Hebb's supraspan learning task (P. M. Corsi, 1972).     

Manual pointing to remembered targets...but also in a remembered visual context

In this paper we investigated whether visual background information available during target presentation influences manual pointing to remembered targets. Younger and older participants manually pointed with their unseen hands to remembered or visible targets that were presented or not over a structured visible background. The results indicated that a structured visual background biased movement planning processes, but did not influence motor control processes, regardless of the fact that target location and the background were visible or remembered. How one uses visual background information for movement planning is not modified by aging.