A kinematic analysis of anticipatory coarticulation in the speech of anterior aphasic subjects using electromagnetic articulography

An investigation was made into the extent and time course of anticipatory coarticulation in the speech of two normal and two anterior aphasic, German-speaking subjects. Both labial and velar coarticulation gestures were investigated. Subjects produced sentences containing target words contrasting in postconsonantal vowel rounding (e.g., [geli:ge]/[gely:gel]) and in nasality (e.g., [ti:de]/[ti:ne]). Speech kinematics were monitored by means of electromagnetic articulography. The data revealed that for correct productions, aphasic speakers' coarticulatory patterns were more highly variable than those of control subjects. These differences, however, were found chiefly for spatial displacement characteristics, while the temporal aspects of articulator movement necessary for anticipatory coarticulation appeared largely intact. Articulator mistiming did not appear to explain a small corpus of stop/nasal substitution errors produced by one of the aphasic speakers.     

A vector graphic CRT display system

A vector graphic CRT display system for research in visual information processing is described. The vector graphic processor includes a 4K-byte display memory. The processor communicates with the controlling computer via a serial channel. The system is capable of exposure durations below 1 msec, and it allows on-line generation and modification of display files during an experiment. Brightness can be controlled separately for each vector of a picture. A graphic display editor in FORTRAN IV for interactive editing and debugging of display files has been developed.     

A two-year follow-up study of a preventive mental health program for preschoolers

The long-term effects of a preschool intervention program for high-risk experimental children were assessed and compared to a high-risk placebo control group and low-risk normal controls. Seventy first-grade children were involved in this 2-year follow-up. The experimental treatment group was superior to that of the placebo control group at follow-up on the criteria measures of behavioral adjustment and achievement. The low-risk normal control group was significantly different from that of the placebo control groups, but generally not significantly different from that of the experimental groups, suggesting that the intervention had boosted the high-risk experimental treatment children to the point where their performance was comparable to that of children who had not experienced behavioral or learning difficulties.The study was supported by grants from the McGregor Fund and the Eloise and Richard Webber Foundation, and by the Detroit Public Schools, for which the authors express grateful appreciation. A version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association, New York, September 1979.     

Hierarchical factor solution of coding and planning processes: Any new insights?

Hierarchical factor solution was used in the present paper in order to examine if two coding processes, simultaneous and successive, would load on a general 2nd level factor. It was further used to test if the coding processes and a factor representing planful behavior will not share the same general factor, revealing their relative independence as expected from a theoretical model of cognitive functions. Results supported the grouping of the coding tasks within a general factor, as well as the emergence of two general factors, one each for coding and planning. Further correlational evidence supported the relative independence of these two kinds of cognitive processes. These findings were discussed in the context of a general factor of intelligence.     

Impression management in behavior toward handicapped patients]

A previous study (Tr?ster, 1989) showed that nonhandicapped persons preferred a physically handicapped interaction partner to a nonhandicapped partner in an attributionally unambiguous situation. In order to test whether this "sympathy effect of physical handicap" is based on tendencies of impression management, 48 female subjects had to choose to sit next to either a physically handicapped or nonhandicapped female interaction partner in order to view a film together. Attributional ambiguity was varied by either confounding the choice of an interaction partner with a second, socially acceptable alternative (attributionally ambiguous situation: a choice between two films) or not confounding it (attributionally unambiguous situation: no choice between films). Public responsibility was manipulated by informing the subjects about their freedom to choose where they wished to sit either in public (public responsibility) or in private (no public responsibility). The results supported the impression management hypothesis: The handicapped interaction partner (in a wheelchair) was only preferred when the subjects had to anticipate that observers would deduce a preference of the chosen partner from the subjects' choices because of the attributionally unambiguous situation and the public announcement of their freedom of choice. Results suggest that the nonhandicapped strive to exhibit positive and nondiscriminative behavior toward the handicapped in order to avoid creating a disadvantageous impression in an observer.     

Hippocampal deafferentation: transplantderived reinnervation and functional recovery

A brief review is provided of the capacity of neural tissue transplants to reinnervate the deafferented hippocampus and repair functional deficits induced by the lesion. The techniques for transplantation of solid pieces of embryonic septum, locus coeruleus or raphe nuclei, or tissue suspensions of embryonic septum, to the adult rat hippocampus are described. Such grafts manifest good long-term survival, provide a good reinnervation of the hippocampus that is histochemically and biochemically appropriate and specific, can establish ultrastructural synaptic contacts with the host, and are electrophysiologically active. Rats with septal grafts manifest recovery of the capacity to learn certain aspects of radial 8-arm maze, T-maze alternation and Morris water-maze tasks. Rats with locus coeruleus grafts manifest an amelioration of lesion-induced hyperactivity. It is concluded that neural tissue transplantation provides a powerful new tool in the study of the functional organization of the hippocampus and its various neurotransmitter-specific afferent systems.     

Assessing social competencies in lower income preschool children

This study examined social competencies in 4-year-old, lower income, nonwhite preschool children in a replication of work by Shure, Spivack, and Jaeger. Age differential interpersonal cognitive problem-solving skills were investigated, i.e., ability to generate alternative solutions to interpersonal problems, consequential thinking, and school achievement as they relate to behavioral adjustment ratings by teachers and independent observers. A teacher's rating of a child as aberrant or adjusted predicted an independent observer's rating of that child in a naturalistic setting. Children who were rated as adjusted by their teachers had significantly higher scores on an achievement inventory than those children who were rated aberrant, but the study did not find the predicted relationship between problem-solving thinking and adjustment. A version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, New York, September 1979. The study was supported by grants from the McGregor Fund, the Eloise and Richard Webber Foundation, the David M. Whitney Fund and by the Detroit Public Schools Region 7, for which the authors express grateful appreciation. The authors also wish to thank Myrna B. Shure for her help in carrying out this replication.     

Some problems of Wilson's disease

The Leipzig Center for Wilson's Disease in the GDR is charged with the registration and diagnosis of all homozygous Wilson gene carriers, the clarification of all suspected cases, including the heterozygote test, and the co-ordination of long-term treatment. At present, there are 78 recorded Wilson gene carriers living. On the basis of our own comprehensive observations and investigations over prolonged periods of time, questions concerning pathogenesis, genetics, diagnosis and therapeutic measures, including their side-effects, are dealt with.     

Experimentally induced phonological paraphasias.

A motor aphasic patient had to repeat word lists that contained, among other things, words with the sequences r - r - l and l - l - r. These sequences were often repeated as l - r - l (anticipatory distant assimilation) and r - l - r (same type, but less frequently), respectively. These assimilations violate the cross-over constraint (or relevancy condition or adjacency principle) and thus represent another instance of a flagrant contradiction between pathological and normal (natural) phonological processes.