Word Detection in Sung and Spoken Sentences in Children With Typical Language Development or With Specific Language Impairment

Background: Previous studies have reported that children score better in language tasks using sung rather than spoken stimuli. We examined word detection ease in sung and spoken sentences that were equated for phoneme duration and pitch variations in children aged 7 to 12 years with typical language development (TLD) as well as in children with specific language impairment (SLI ), and hypothesized that the facilitation effect would vary with language abilities. Method: In Experiment 1, 69 children with TLD (7–10 years old) detected words in sentences that were spoken, sung on pitches extracted from speech, and sung on original scores. In Experiment 2, we added a natural speech rate condition and tested 68 children with TLD (7–12 years old). In Experiment 3, 16 children with SLI and 16 age-matched children with TLD were tested in all four conditions. Results: In both TLD groups, older children scored better than the younger ones. The matched TLD group scored higher than the SLI group who scored at the level of the younger children with TLD . None of the experiments showed a facilitation effect of sung over spoken stimuli. Conclusions: Word detection abilities improved with age in both TLD and SLI groups. Our findings are compatible with the hypothesis of delayed language abilities in children with SLI , and are discussed in light of the role of durational prosodic cues in words detection.     

Encoding dimensions of subject-performed tasks

Summary In an experiment modelled upon the classical paradigm on release from proactive interference (PI), subjects were required to remember series of actions they had performed (e.g., roll the ball, fold the paper). The objects involved in these subject-performed tasks (SPTs) served as a basis for build-up and release of PI. The objects used in the first few trials of the experiment belonged to the same class (e.g., parts of the body), causing a build up of PI. A shift to a different class of objects (e.g., kitchen utensils) along four different dimensions (taxonomic category, weight, color, and size) was introduced to cause a release of PI. On the basis of PI-release experiments with words it was expected that shifts in taxonomic category would result in a greater release than shifts within any of the physical dimensions. However, the results revealed that the amount of PI release was, in general, larger than expected, and essentially the same for all four dimensions investigated. The results are discussed in terms of the nature of the memory representation of SPTs, and with regard to possible processing differences between SPTs and verbal information. In addition, methodological suggestions for furthering the understanding of the encoding and storage of action events are advanced.     

Behavioral assessment and treatment of acquired visuoperceptual disorders

Visuoperceptual deficits are common sequelae of damage to either hemisphere of the brain, but are typically more pronounced following injuries involving the right cerebral hemisphere. Common visuoperceptual disorders include visual field cuts, hemi-inattention and hemi-spatial neglect, hemi-perceptual deficits, and gaze and visual pursuit disturbances. A number of behavioral interventions have been developed to teach patients to compensate for acquired visual deficits. Studies addressing assessment and treatment issues in this area are reviewed, and future directions for research are outlined.     

Differentiated additive androgyny model: relations between masculinity, femininity, and multiple dimensions of self-concept.

Masculinity (M) and femininity (F) were related to multiple dimensions of self-concept in 2 large studies. Androgyny theory predicts that M and F contribute positively to self-concept, but the effect of F has been nil in research using global self measures. Here, consistent with the new differentiated additive model, the relative contribution of M and F varied substantially, depending on the area of self-concept; F contributed more positively to self-concept facets that were more stereotypically feminine. Support for the model was consistent across self-responses and responses by significant others (Study 1) and across 5 age groups in early-to-middle adolescence (Study 2).     

Introduction to special issue of Cognition on lexical and conceptual semantics.

It is the fate of those who dwell at the lower employments of life, to be rather driven by the fear of evil, than attracted by the prospect of good; to be exposed to censure, without hope of praise; to be disgraced by miscarriage, or punished for neglect, where success would have been without applause, and diligence without reward. Among these unhappy mortals is the writer of dictionaries ... (Preface, Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, 1755).     

Learning from feedback: exactingness and incentives.

In a series of five experiments, exactingness, or the extent to which deviations from optimal decisions are punished, is studied within the context of learning a repetitive decision-making task together with the effects of incentives. Results include the findings that (a) performance is an inverted-U shaped function of exactingness, (b) performance is better under incentives when environments are lenient but not when they are exacting, (c) the interaction between exactingness and incentives does not obtain when an incentives function fails to discriminate sharply between good and bad performance, and (d) when the negative effects of exactingness on performance are eliminated, performance increases with exactingness.