Dissociations of writing and praxis: Two cases in point

For normal writing it is essential that both motoric and linguistic competence be present; disruption of one or the other of these faculties may result in qualitatively different types of agraphia. Two right-handed patients became agraphic after left hemisphere lesions; pure apraxic agraphia in the absence of limb apraxia developed in one patient and pure linguistic agraphia in association with severe ideomotor limb apraxia in the other. The performance of these patients not only serves to illustrate the dissociation between the motoric and linguistic faculties that underlie writing but also confirms that ideomotor limb apraxia and apraxic agraphia are distinct and dissociable entities.     

Category-Specific Naming Deficit for Medical Terms after Dominant Thalamic/Capsular Hemorrhage

Postmortem, retrograde degeneration, and electrical stimulation studies have implicated the anterior pulvinar in language processing. We examined a patient who, after a hemorrhage affecting the dominant pulvinar and internal capsule, exhibited a circumscribed anomia for medical items and conditions. No other language disturbance was noted. Five category-specific word lists, matched for word frequency, were administered in a naming-to-definition format. Results indicated that the patient exhibited a significant category-specific naming deficit for medical items and conditions compared to matched control subjects. Although medical item lists were found to differ from nonmedical item lists in imageability and abstractness, B.C.'s category-specific deficit did not seem to be caused by word frequency, concept familiarity, imageability, or abstractness. Nor could the patient's performance be explained on the basis of deficits in broader semantic classifications (i.e., animate vs inanimate or man-made vs natural). The patient was unable to retrieve medical items even when given phonemic cues for those he could not name. Findings indicate that subtotal damage in the dominant pulvinar may create category-specific deficits.     

Apraxia in a patient with atypical cerebral dominance

Liepmann postulated that the left hemisphere of right-handed persons contains the "movement formulas" that control purposeful skilled movements of the limbs on both sides of the body. Accordingly, in right-handers apraxia should follow damage to the left hemisphere, whereas right hemisphere damage should not lead to apraxia. Although this is generally true, we recently examined a right-handed man who after a right hemispheric stroke became aphasic and apraxic with his nonparalyzed right hand. Our observations suggest that the right hemisphere of this right-handed man made a critical contribution to the planning and execution of skilled movements. This case provides evidence that right-handers should not be considered a homogeneous group in terms of cerebral motor dominance and that contrary to Liepmann's postulate, hemispheric dominance for the control of skilled movements does not entirely determine handedness.     

Phonological alexia with optic and tactile anomia: a neuropsychological and anatomical study

We describe a patient with phonological alexia caused by a small hemorrhage in the posterior-inferior portion of the left temporal lobe. The lesion induced a highly selective impairment of phonological reading without concomitant oral language deficits other than anomia for objects presented in the visual and tactile modalities. We propose that an intact dorsal pathway from inferior visual association areas to Wernicke's area via the angular gyrus could mediate reading by the lexical route, while damage to a ventral pathway disrupted the patient's ability to read nonwords. We suggest further that although visually and tactually presented objects could be recognized and both verbally and nonverbally identified, they could not be named because of a disconnection from the area of word representations.     

Catching up with wonderful women: The women‐are‐wonderful effect is smaller in more gender egalitarian societies

Inequalities between men and women are common and well‐documented. Objective indexes show that men are better positioned than women in societal hierarchies—there is no single country in the world without a gender gap. In contrast, researchers have found that the women‐are‐wonderful effect—that women are evaluated more positively than men overall—is also common. Cross‐cultural studies on gender equality reveal that the more gender egalitarian the society is, the less prevalent explicit gender stereotypes are. Yet, because self‐reported gender stereotypes may differ from implicit attitudes towards each gender, we reanalysed data collected across 44 cultures, and (a) confirmed that societal gender egalitarianism reduces the women‐are‐wonderful effect when it is measured more implicitly (i.e. rating the personality of men and women presented in images) and (b) documented that the social perception of men benefits more from gender egalitarianism than that of women.     

Silver linings in the face of temptations: how mixed emotions promote self-control efforts in response to goal conflict

Choosing between conflicting goals is a frequent yet difficult problem, especially when temptations are involved because self-control effort is required to overcome them. This study investigated whether experiencing mixed emotions in response to goal conflict can facilitate the necessary self-control effort needed to resist temptations. A sample of 73 individuals participated in an intensive longitudinal study, completing several measures 4 times a day during ten consecutive days, producing over 2500 observations. Results derived from using multilevel structural equation modeling confirmed that mixed emotions mediated the relationship between perceived goal conflict and intentions to resist temptations, over and above the influence of single positive emotions or negative emotions, and trait levels of self-control. Implication of these findings for collaboration and the impact of mixed emotions in more general social dilemmas are explored.