Phonological processing and lexical access in aphasia

This study explored the relationship between on-line processing of phonological information and lexical access in aphasic patients. A lexical decision paradigm was used in which subjects were presented auditorily with pairs of words or word-like stimuli and were asked to make a lexical decision about the second stimulus in the pair. The initial phonemes of the first word primes, which were semantically related to the real word targets, were systematically changed by one or more than one phonetic feature, e.g., cat-dog, gat-dog, wat-dog. Each of these priming conditions was compared to an unrelated word baseline condition, e.g., nurse-dog. Previous work with normals showed that even a nonword stimulus receives a lexical interpretation if it shares a sufficient number of phonetic features with an actual word in the listener's lexicon. Results indicated a monotonically decreasing degree of facilitation as a function of phonological distortion. In contrast, fluent aphasics showed priming in all phonological distortion conditions relative to the unrelated word baseline. Nonfluent aphasics showed priming only in the undistorted, related word condition relative to the unrelated word baseline. Nevertheless, in a secondary task requiring patients to make a lexical decision on the nonword primes presented singly, all aphasics showed phonological feature sensitivity. These results suggest deficits for aphasic patients in the various processes contributing to lexical access, rather than impairments at the level of lexical organization or phonological organization.     

Primate learning tasks reveal strong impairments in patients with presenile or senile dementia of the Alzheimer type

Eight subjects with the likely diagnosis of presenile or senile dementia of the Alzheimer type were tested on two frequently used primate learning tasks: a concurrent object discrimination task and a delayed non-match-to-sample task. In addition, various tests for cognitive, mnemonic, perceptual, and language functions were applied. The results suggest a severe decline of the Alzheimer subjects in all measures when compared with 10 control subjects matched for age, gender, and education. The two animal learning tasks revealed strong impairments, thus demonstrating a high sensitivity for the detection and assessment of human amnesic disorders. Implications of these findings for human neuropsychological, and especially comparative neuropsychological, research are discussed.     

Convergence in the physical appearance of spouses

This study attempted to determine whether people who live with each other for a long period of time grow physically similar in their facial features. Photographs of couples when they were first married and 25 years later were judged for physical similarity and for the likelihood that they were married. The results showed that there is indeed an increase in apparent similarity after 25 years of cohabitation. Moreover, increase in resemblance was associated with greater reported marital happiness. Among the explanations of this phenomenon that were examined, one based on a theory of emotional efference emerged as promising. This theory proposes that emotional processes produce vascular changes that are, in part, regulated by facial musculature. The facial muscles are said to act as ligatures on veins and arteries, and they thereby are able to divert blood from, or direct blood to, the brain. An implication of the vascular theory of emotional efference is that habitual use of facial musculature may permanently affect the physical features of the face. The implication holds further that two people who live with each other for a longer period of time, by virtue of repeated empathic mimicry, would grow physically similar in their facial features. Kin resemblance, therefore, may not be simply a matter of common genes but also a matter of prolonged social contact.A. L.Dear A. L.: As far as physical appearance is concerned, likes seem to attract. Some experts feel that this resemblance may partly be explained by the fact that couples who've lived together for some time usually eat the same diet and share the same habits. The Joyce Brothers Column April 1985 This work was supported by Grant BNS-8505981 from the National Science Foundation. We wish to thank all those who offered their photographs for the purposes of this study, and Joseph R. Zajonc for his helpful suggestions.     

A comparison of 13-year-old boys with attention deficit and/or reading disorder on neuropsychological measures

This study compared 13 year-old-boys with attention deficit disorder (ADD) and/or reading disability (RD), and controls with neither disorder on a battery of verbal and nonverbal neuropsychological measures. The aim was to examine whether ADD was associated with a qualitatively distinct pattern of deficits compared with RD. None of the measures differentiated the boys with ADD-only from the controls; the only deficit associated with ADD was slightly lower IQ. RD, on the other hand, was associated with deficits in memory and verbal skills.The Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit is supported by the Medical Research Council of New Zealand and involves several Departments of the University of Otago. Much of the data are gathered by voluntary workers from the Dunedin community.The authors are indebted to the many people who contributions make this ongoing study possible. We wish to acknowledge the advice and help of Dr. P. A. Silva, director of the Dunedin Unit, in preparing this report.     

The structure and correlates of self-reported symptoms in 11-year-old children

Self-reports of DSM-III symptomatology were obtained from 792 11-year-old children using the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children (DISC). We report results concerning 13 subscales derived from the DISC. Factor-analysis of the subscales suggested a broad distinction between externalizing and internalizing disorder for boys' self-report. For girls, two separate internalizing factors representing anxiety and depression emerged. We also found sex differences in correlates of self-reported disorder. Finally, we examined agreement between child and parent and teacher reports. Overall, agreement was relatively low, although somewhat higher for child-parent than for child-teacher.The Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit is supported by the Medical Research Council of New Zealand and the Departments of Education and Health, and involves several departments of the University of Otago. Much of the data are gathered by voluntary workers from the Dunedin community. The authors are indebted to the many people whose contributions make this ongoing study possible.     

Semantic processing in aphasia: Evidence from an auditory lexical decision task

W. Milberg and S. E. Blumstein (1981, Brain and Language 14, 371–385) demonstrated semantic facilitation effects in a visual lexical decision task administered to Wernicke and other aphasics with severe comprehension deficits. In an attempt to explore the generalizability of these findings in a task where the acoustic-phonetic system could not be bypassed to access meaning, Wernicke's, Global, Broca's, and Conduction aphasics were administered a lexical decision task in the auditory modality. The patients were also given a simple semantic judgment task using the word pairs from the lexical decision task. The aphasic patients showed evidence of semantic facilitation whether they were categorized by diagnostic group or comprehension level. Performance of the semantic judgment task correlated with the severity of auditory comprehension deficits, whereas the consistency of the semantic facilitation effect did not. Even patients with severe comprehension deficits showed semantic facilitation. These results decrease the likelihood that auditory comprehension deficits are due to semantic organization per se and increase the likelihood that the deficits lie in one of the many processes involved in access to that information.     

Long-term retention as a function of word concreteness under conditions of free recall

Acquisition and long-term retention of concrete (C) and abstract (A) words were investigated under conditions of multiple-trial free recall. Both unmixed and mixed lists were used in original learning. Retention was tested either 1 rain or 1 week after attainment of the learning criterion. Acquisition was faster and retention was higher for C than for A words. These differences were more pronounced for mixed than for unmixed lists.