Consonant-vowel lateralization in dyslexic children: deficit or compensatory development?

Two studies with the same subjects examined dyslexic children's puzzling superiority in forced left ear (LE) dichotic recall with consonant-vowel (CV) combinations. Thirty dysphonemic dyslexics were compared to 30 age-matched and 30 younger reading-matched normal readers. The children were tested in directed attention dichotic listening and in pseudoword decoding, word recognition, reading comprehension, spelling, arithmetic, and general intelligence (IQ). Failure to replicate the LE effect in the first experiment or in free-recall trials suggests its probable origin in aberrant attention/arousal rather than in deviant verbal lateralization. Experiment two replicated the superior LE effect in comparison to both control groups but also found the dyslexics poorer at the right ear (RE). Laterality coefficients confirmed that the dyslexics were more weakly lateralized. Corrections for stimulus dominance revealed that the uncorrected scores (1) concealed the extreme difficulty of the task and (2) obscured floor effects in the LE performance of the normals. Correlations suggest cautiously that CV lateralization may be associated inversely with reading comprehension and word decoding in the dyslexics and normal readers. The results provide mild support for the hypothesis that weak attentional lateralization for CVs in dyslexia may result from the precocious development of posterior right hemisphere attentional systems in compensation for presumed posterior left hemisphere lesions. No support was found for the competing hypothesis that such weak lateralization may be a component of the dyslexics' primary, correlated, or secondary deficit symptomatology.     

Educational level and the word frequency effect: a lexical decision investigation.

It is known that speed and accuracy in recognizing words are constrained by the frequency of occurrence of these words ("frequency effect"). This study examines the relationship between educational level and the word frequency effect. We postulated that individual exposure to words that are rated lower in frequency tables should be greater among subjects with higher education and therefore hypothesized that the magnitude of the frequency effect should not be as marked within such a population as among subjects with a lesser educational level. A total of 40 neurologically healthy adults, half with an average of 18 years of formal education and the other half with an average of 11 years, participated in a lexical decision experiment. Results confirmed our hypothesis; that is, significant frequency effects on reaction times were obtained in both groups but this effect was of greater magnitude for the less educated as opposed to the more educated subgroup. The significance of this finding is discussed by reference to current models of word recognition.     

Effects of aging on the diurnal pattern of water intake in rats.

This study was undertaken to confirm previous findings that Long-Evans rats exhibit age-related changes in the diurnal/nocturnal distribution of water intake and to examine the circadian pattern of these age-related changes. Twenty-one aged and 10 young pathogen-free rats were continuously monitored for water consumption over 12:12 h light/dark cycles. ANOVA, profile analysis, and cosinor analysis each demonstrated that aged rats differed from young rats. The age-related changes in circadian pattern can be described as a blunted rhythm (decreased amplitude) and an altered timing of peak activity (advanced acrophase). These differences, however, were only apparent in a subset of aged rats with the remaining aged rats exhibiting a circadian pattern indistinguishable from that of the young group.     

Effects of protein malnutrition and the administration of cortisol on the reflexologic development in rats.

The use of neurological tests in various states of undernutrition has confirmed the presence of delays in reflex ontogeny. Glucocorticoid administration in conditions of normal nutrition produces diminished growth and alterations in brain development similar to those observed in malnutrition, but there is not enough evidence about its effect on reflex development. In addition, some facts lead us to think that the use of permissive doses of these hormones during gestation could alleviate some of the effects of protein malnutrition on the development of pups. In the present study the ages at which certain reflexes appeared in the offspring of Wistar rats (Rattus norvegicus) fed a 20% (N) or 10% (M) protein diet from a week before conception to the end of lactation were observed. Each dietary group was subdivided into two: mothers receiving a daily injection during gestation either of a 0.9% NaCl (S) solution or of a 0.5 mg/100 g weight hydrocortisone acetate (C) solution. Results showed that the NS group of pups generally presented earlier ages of appearance of the variables under study than the remaining groups. Pups of the NC group presented delays in the age of appearance of reflexes. Finally, protein malnutrition delayed the appearance of reflexes and this effect seemed to be attenuated by treatment with hydrocortisone. Thus, hydrocortisone administration in protein malnutrition conditions seems to be beneficial although the results are harmful when administered under normal nutritional conditions.     

Behavioral response of altricial and precocial rodent fetuses to acute umbilical cord compression.

Norway rat fetuses (Rattus norvegicus) exhibit a stereotypic behavioral response when the umbilical cord is experimentally compressed with a vascular clamp. In this study, the development of the fetal behavioral response to cord compression was compared in altricial and precocial rodents, which differ markedly in neural and motor maturity at the time of birth. Both altricial and precocial species showed some form of behavioral response to umbilical cord compression. Fetuses of two altricial species, Norway rats and Mongolian gerbils (Meriones unguiculatus), expressed hyperactivity in response to cord compression throughout the last third of gestation. In contrast, precocial cotton rats (Sigmodon hispidus) and spiny mice (Acomys cahirinus) did not respond to cord compression until relatively late in gestation. Thus, altricial and precocial species do not express the cord compression response during comparable periods of neural development: precocial species are much more mature at the earliest expression of this behavior than altricial species. These findings are consistent with the interpretation that the cord compression response is a behavioral adaptation that can promote survival of the fetus in utero.     

Evolution of behavioral attractors with learning: nonequilibrium phase transitions.

Learning a bimanual coordination task (synchronization to a visually specified phasing relation) was studied as a dynamical process over 5 days of practicing a required phasing pattern. Systematic probes of the attractor layout of the 5 Ss' coordination dynamics (expressed through a collective variable, relative phase) were conducted before, during, and after practice. Depending on the relationship between the initial coordination dynamics (so-called intrinsic dynamics) and the pattern to be learned (termed behavioral information, which acts as an attractor of the coordination dynamics toward the required phasing), qualitative changes in the phase diagram occurred with learning, accompanied by quantitative evidence for loss of stability (phase transitions). Such effects persisted beyond 1 week. The nature of change due to learning (e.g., abrupt vs. gradual) is shown to arise from the cooperative or competitive interplay between behavioral information and the intrinsic dynamics.     

Wayfinding on foot from information in retinal, not optical, flow.

People find their way through cluttered environments with ease and without injury. How do they do it? Two approaches to wayfinding are considered: Differential motion parallax (DMP) is a retinal motion invariant of near and far objects moving against fixation; the information in optical flow (IOF) is a radial pattern of vectors, relying on decomposition of retinal flow. Evidence is presented that DMP guides wayfinding during natural gait, accounting for errors as well as correct responses. Evidence against IOF is also presented, and a space-time aliasing artifact that can contaminate IOF displays is explored. Finally, DMP and IOF are separated, showing they can yield different results in different environments. Thus, it is concluded that (a) DMP and IOF are different, (b) DMP and not IOF is used for wayfinding, (c) moving observers do not usually decompose retinal flow, and (d) optical flow may be a mathematical fiction with no psychological reality.     

Associative regulation of Pavlovian fear conditioning: unconditional stimulus intensity, incentive shifts, and latent inhibition.

Conditional stimuli (CS) associated with painful unconditional stimuli (US) produce a naloxone-reversible analgesia. The analgesia serves as a negative-feedback regulation of fear conditioning that can account for the impact of US intensity and CS predictiveness on Pavlovian fear conditioning. In Experiment 1 training under naloxone produced learning curves that approached the same high asymptote despite US intensity. Shifting drug treatment during acquisition had effects that paralleled US intensity shifts. In Experiment 3 naloxone reversed Hall-Pearce (1979) negative transfer using a contextual CS, indicating that conditional analgesia acquired during the CS-weak-footshock phase retards acquisition in the CS-strong-footshock phase. Experiment 5 used a tone CS in both a latent-inhibition and a negative-transfer procedure. Only negative transfer was blocked by naloxone. Therefore, negative transfer but not latent inhibition is mediated by a reduction of US processing.     

Some properties of configural learning: an investigation of the transverse-patterning problem.

Little is known about the conditions that encourage animals to learn to use configural associations to guide their behavior or the consequences of such learning for transfer. This study provided some information about these issues by examining how rats solve the transverse-patterning problem, which requires a configural solution (Spence, 1952). Animals had to concurrently solve 3 simultaneous visual discriminations, represented abstractly as A+ versus B-, B+ versus C-, and C+ versus A-. Experiment 1 indicated that rats use a configural solution even when the problems have an elemental solution, provided that the significance of 1 element (e.g., B) shared by 2 problems is ambiguous (e.g., A+/B-; and B+/C-). Experiments 2 and 3 suggested that, when stimulated to use a configural solution by solving the A+/B- and B+/C- problems, rats transfer the configural solution to problems that have no ambiguous elements.     

Does a cognitive map guide choices in the radial-arm maze?

Fifteen rats performed in a standard radial-arm maze task (Experiment 1) and in a modified task with a set of forced choices and a 15-min retention interval prior to completion of the maze (Experiment 2). In addition to the standard measure of choice in the radial-arm maze, orientation toward arms was measured and considered to constitute go-no-go "microchoice" decisions. Rats investigated but rejected many arms. A model of choice was developed in which it was assumed that choice decisions about arms were made independently and that microchoices were not selectively guided toward baited arms. The model performed nearly as well as the rats. These results place important limitations on the theory that choice behavior in the radial-arm maze is guided by a cognitive map.