An interaction between prosody and statistics in the segmentation of fluent speech

Sensitivity to prosodic cues might be used to constrain lexical search. Indeed, the prosodic organization of speech is such that words are invariably aligned with phrasal prosodic edges, providing a cue to segmentation. In this paper we devise an experimental paradigm that allows us to investigate the interaction between statistical and prosodic cues to extract words from a speech stream. We provide evidence that statistics over the syllables are computed independently of prosody. However, we also show that trisyllabic sequences with high transition probabilities that straddle two prosodic constituents appear not to be recognized. Taken together, our findings suggest that prosody acts as a filter, suppressing possible word-like sequences that span prosodic constituents.     

Gastroesophageal reflux disease: alexithymia and attachment style

Alexithymia and its relation with attachment style were evaluated in a group of 69 patients (men, M age = 46.4 yr., SD = 12.6; women, M age = 44.2 yr., SD = 14.4) affected by Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease. Two self-evaluation questionnaires were used for psychological evaluation, the 20 item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and the Attachment Style Questionnaire (ASQ). The TAS-20 analysis showed that the clinical sample taken as a whole did not score in the alexithymic range. The inverse correlations between the Confidence ASQ subscale and the Difficulty Communicating Feelings TAS-20 subscale showed that communication of emotions could develop more easily within the framework of a relational context characterized by safety and confidence. In this group of patients this was represented by the referent caregiver.     

Effects of language intervention on syntactic skill levels in preschoolers

Questions concerning the role of input in the growth of syntactic skills have generated substantial debate within psychology and linguistics. The authors address these questions by investigating the effects of experimentally manipulated input on children's skill with the passive voice. The study involved 72 four-year-olds who listened to stories containing either a high proportion of passive voice sentences or a high proportion of active voice sentences. Following 10 story sessions, children's production and comprehension of passives were assessed. Intervention type affected performance--children who heard stories with passive sentences produced more passive constructions (and with fewer mistakes) and showed higher comprehension scores than children who heard stories with active sentences. Theoretical implications of these results for the understanding of the nature of syntactic skills and practical implications for the development of preschool materials are discussed.     

Children's use of geometric information in mapping tasks

Accumulating evidence, particularly from research using the disorientation technique, demonstrates early sensitivity to geometric properties of space. However, it is not known whether children can use geometric cues to interpret a map. The current study examined how 3- to 6-year-olds use geometric features of layouts in solving mapping tasks. Children were asked to identify a target location in a layout shaped as an isosceles triangle by using information provided in a picture of that layout. Performance depended on whether the shape was presented explicitly or needed to be inferred. Younger participants performed better when the triangle was formed by continuous connected lines than when it was formed by separate objects. Performance also depended on the type of geometric cues available. Children found it easier to establish mapping for targets located in the unique corner of the triangle than for targets located in equal-sized corners. Overall, the findings reveal both a remarkable early ability to use geometric information in mapping and limits in this ability.     

Neuroanatomically separable effects of imageability and grammatical class during single-word comprehension

The present study characterizes the neural correlates of noun and verb imageability and addresses the question of whether components of the neural network supporting word recognition can be separately modified by variations in grammatical class and imageability. We examined the effect of imageability on BOLD signal during single-word comprehension of nouns and verbs. Subjects made semantic similarity judgments while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Nouns and verbs were matched on imageability, and imageability varied continuously within a grammatical category. We observed three anatomically separable effects: a main effect of grammatical class, a main effect of imageability, and an imageability by grammatical class cross-over interaction. The left superior parietal lobule and a region in the left fusiform responded similarly to increases in noun and verb imageability; the left superior temporal gyrus showed greater activity for verbs than nouns after imageability was matched across grammatical class; and, in both the left middle temporal gyrus and the left inferior frontal lobe, a decrease in noun but not verb imageability resulted in higher BOLD signal. The presence of reliable and anatomically separable main effects of both imageability and grammatical class renders unlikely the hypothesis that previously reported dissociations between nouns and verbs can be dismissed as imageability effects. However, some regions previously thought to respond to grammatical class or imageability instead respond to the interaction of these variables.     

Two spheres of belief in justice: extensive support for the bidimensional model of belief in a just world

The purpose of this research comprising five studies (N = 666) was to further corroborate the bidimensional conceptualisation of the belief in a just world proposed by Lipkus et al. (1996). It was demonstrated that belief in a just world for the Self (and not for Others) was correlated to evaluations of the meaning of life. Belief in a just world for Others was significantly correlated to discrimination against the elderly, stigmatisation of poverty, and higher penal punitiveness, while belief in a just world for Self was weakly or not related to these variables. Together, these observations confirm the importance of the conceptual and psychometric distinction between these two spheres of the belief in a just world.     

Verbal actions of physiotherapists to enhance motor learning in children with DCD

In this study, the motor teaching principles taxonomy (MTPT) was developed to investigate which teaching principles physiotherapists use to treat children with developmental coordination disorder during Neuromotor Task Training (NTT). In NTT, special attention is paid to the best ways to instruct and provide feedback. Based on motor learning theory and video observations of NTT treatments, teaching principles aimed at improving motor learning were categorised into three categories: giving instruction, providing or asking feedback, and sharing knowledge. The MTPT's reliability and validity were satisfactory. Therapists gave instructions very frequently. In addition, the principle frequency showed hardly any correlation with the children's initial motor performance level, indicating that the principles used are not related to the child's entry level.     

Perception of elliptic biological motion

We tested the ability of the mature visual system for discrimination between types of elliptic biological motion on the basis of event kinematics. Healthy adult volunteers were presented with point-light displays depicting elliptic motion when only a single dot, a moving point-light arm, or a whole point-light human figure was visible. The displays were created in accordance with the two-thirds power kinematic law (natural motion), whereas the control displays violated this principle (unnatural motion). On each trial, participants judged whether the display represented natural or unnatural motion. The findings indicate that adults are highly sensitive to violation of the two-thirds power kinematic law. Notably, participants can easily discriminate between natural and unnatural motions without recognising the stimuli, which suggests that people implicitly use kinematic information. Most intriguing, event recognition seems to diminish the capacity to judge whether event kinematics is unnatural. We discuss possible ways for a cross-talk between perception and production of biological movement, and the brain mechanisms involved in biological motion processing.     

Rethinking the ontogeny of mindreading

We propose a mentalistic and nativist view of human early mental and social life and of the ontogeny of mindreading. We define the mental state of sharedness as the primitive, one-sided capability to take one's own mental states as mutually known to an interactant. We argue that this capability is an innate feature of the human mind, which the child uses to make a subjective sense of the world and of her actions. We argue that the child takes all of her mental states as shared with her caregivers. This allows her to interact with her caregivers in a mentalistic way from the very beginning and provides the grounds on which the later maturation of mindreading will build. As the latter process occurs, the child begins to understand the mental world in terms of differences between the mental states of different agents; subjectively, this also corresponds to the birth of privateness.