A clinician survey of speech and non-speech characteristics of neurogenic stuttering

This study presents survey data on 58 Dutch-speaking patients with neurogenic stuttering following various neurological injuries. Stroke was the most prevalent cause of stuttering in our patients, followed by traumatic brain injury, neurodegenerative diseases, and other causes. Speech and non-speech characteristics were analyzed separately for these four etiology groups. Results suggested possible group differences, including site of lesion and influence of speech conditions on stuttering. Other characteristics, such as within-word localization of disfluencies and presence of secondary behaviors were comparable across the etiology groups. The implications of our results for the diagnosis of neurogenic stuttering will be discussed.

Educational objectives: After reading this article, the reader will be able to: (1) provide a concise overview of the main literature on neurogenic stuttering; (2) discuss the speech and non-speech characteristics of neurogenic stuttering; (3) provide an overview of current clinical practices for intervention with neurogenic stuttering patients and their perceived outcome.     

Autonomous motivation, controlled motivation, and goal progress

Although the self-concordance of goals has been repeatedly shown to predict better goal progress, recent research suggests potential problems with aggregating autonomous and controlled motivations to form a summary index of self-concordance (Judge, Bono, Erez, & Locke, 2005). The purpose of the present investigation was to further examine the relations among autonomous motivation, controlled motivation, and goal progress to determine the relative importance of autonomous motivation and controlled motivation in the pursuit of personal goals. The results of three studies and a meta-analysis indicated that autonomous motivation was substantially related to goal progress whereas controlled motivation was not. Additionally, the relation of autonomous motivation to goal progress was shown to involve implementation planning. Together, the three studies highlight the importance for goal setters of having autonomous motivation and developing implementation plans, especially ones formulated in terms of approach strategies rather than avoidance strategies. The present research suggests that individuals pursuing goals should focus relatively greater attention on enhancing their autonomous motivation rather than reducing their controlled motivation.     

Configural and featural processing during face perception: A new stimulus set

A new stimulus set of 60 male-face stimuli in seven in-depth orientations was developed. The set can be used in research on configural versus featural mechanisms of face processing. Configural, or holistic, changes are produced by changing the global form of the face, whereas featural, or part-based, changes are attained by altering the local form of internal facial features. For each face in the set, there is one other face that differs only by its global form and one other face that differs only by its internal features. In all faces, extrafacial cues have been eliminated or standardized. The stimulus set also contains a color-coded division of each face in areas of interest, which is useful for eye movement research on face scanning strategies. We report a matching experiment with upright and inverted face pairs that demonstrates that the face stimulus set is indeed useful for research on configural and featural face perception. The stimulus set may be downloaded from the Psychonomic Society’s archive (brm.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental) or from our Web site (http://ppw.kuleuven .be/labexppsy/ newSite/resources)     

The Logic of the Ontological Square

The Ontological Square is a categorial scheme that combines two metaphysical distinctions: that between types (or universals) and tokens (or particulars) on the one hand, and that between characters (or features) and their substrates (or bearers) on the other hand. The resulting four-fold classification of things comprises particular substrates, called substances, universal substrates, called kinds, particular characters, called modes or moments, and universal characters, called attributes. Things are joined together in facts by primitive ontological ties or nexus. This article describes a logic that is meant to capture the basic intuitions behind the Ontological Square. Given a minimal correspondence between atomic logical form and ontological structure, the commitment to nexus as a distinct ontological category entails a rehabilitation of copulae as ties of predication. Thus, the Logic of the Ontological Square is a copula calculus rather than a predicate calculus; its soundness and completeness can be established with respect to a model akin to a so-called first-order semantics for standard second-order logic. Presented by Hannes Leitgeb     

Coherence arguments and cyclical moral rankings

I thank an anonymous referee of this journal for this or her helpful comments.     

Why Do People Fail to Adopt Environmental Protective Behaviors? Toward a Taxonomy of Environmental Amotivation1

Individuals' reasons for their lack of motivation toward environmental protective behaviors were proposed: amotivation because of strategy, capacity, effort, and helplessness beliefs. Confirmatory factor analyses and correlations between the four types of amotivation and constructs related to the environment supported the validity of the constructs. A structural model in which helplessness beliefs could be predicted by the other sets of beliefs, and wherein strategy and ability beliefs resulted from effort beliefs, was tested. All estimated parameters were significant, with the exception of one link: amotivation because of effort beliefs did not display a significant relationship with helplessness beliefs. The importance of understanding why individuals may be amotivated and the strategies liable to help reduce their lack of motivation are discussed.     

An empirical test for Fishburn's additivity axiom

Three experiments were done to test the empirical relevance of Fishburn's (1967) additivity axiom, which says that people should be indifferent between pairs of gambles which satisfy certain conditions specified in the axiom. Each of the experiments consisted of two parts. In the first part, subjects had to evaluate consequences which were used in the second part as possible outcomes in a gamble. In the second part, subjects had to make choices among pairs of gambles. The experiments differed in respect to kinds of consequences and kinds of subjects used. Additivity analysis was applied to the data of the first part of each experiment, using a conjoint measurement model. A Monte Carlo study is included, which provides some hints for the evaluation of the stress coefficients obtained after applying additivity analysis to the empirical data matrices. The data of the second part of each experiment are discussed in respect to their relevance for Fishburn's (1967) additivity axiom. It was not strongly supported by the data, unless for a very restricted situation.     

Sex differences in comments made during conflict within close heterosexual pairs

Questionnaires were used to investigate (1) stereotypes about what young couples do and say during their conflicts and (2) reports (by actual young couples) of what each one is likely to do or say. The two sets of data yielded much the same pattern of results. The female is expected and reported to cry and sulk and to criticize the male for lack of consideration of her feelings and for insensitivity to his effect on her. The male is expected and reported to show anger, to reject the female's tears, to call for a logical and less emotional approach to the problem, and to give reasons for delaying the discussion. The Study I expectations for sex differences during conflict are held to about the same degree by the female and male respondents. In both studies, the differences were found to depend primarily on sex of the person and not on the particular problem involved in the conflict. The results are interpreted in terms of the interaction between a conflict-avoidant person (the male) and his partner (the female), who is frustrated by the avoidance and asks that the problem and the feelings associated with it be confronted.     

Phonological encoding in the silent speech of persons who stutter

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the role of phonological encoding in the silent speech of persons who stutter (PWS) and persons who do not stutter (PNS). Participants were 10 PWS (M=30.4 years, S.D.=7.8), matched in age, gender, and handedness with 11 PNS (M=30.1 years, S.D.=7.8). Each participant performed five tasks: a familiarization task, an overt picture naming task, a task of self-monitoring target phonemes during concurrent silent picture naming, a task of monitoring target pure tones in aurally presented tonal sequences, and a simple motor task requiring finger button clicks in response to an auditory tone. Results indicated that PWS were significantly slower in phoneme monitoring compared to PNS. No significant between-group differences were present for response speed during the auditory monitoring, picture naming or simple motor tasks, nor did the two groups differ for percent errors in any of the experimental tasks. The findings were interpreted to suggest a specific deficiency at the level of phonological monitoring, rather than a general monitoring, reaction time or auditory monitoring deficit in PWS. Educational objectives: As a result of this activity, the participant should: (1) identify and assess the literature on phonological encoding skills in PWS, (2) enumerate and evaluate some major psycholinguistic theories of stuttering, and (3) describe the mechanism by which defective phonological encoding can disrupt fluent speech production.