Bilingual language processing after a lesion in the left thalamic and temporal regions. A case report with early childhood onset.

This case study concerns an 18-year-old bilingual girl who suffered a radiation lesion in the left (dominant) thalamic and temporal region when she was 4 years old. Language and memory assessment revealed deficits in auditory short-term memory, auditory word comprehension, nonword repetition, syntactic processing, word fluency, and confrontation naming tasks. Both languages (English and Dutch) were found to be affected in a similar manner, despite the fact that one language (English) was acquired before and the other (Dutch) after the period of lesion onset. Most of the deficits appear to be related to verbal (short-term) memory dysfunction. Several hypotheses of subcortical involvement in memory processes are discussed with reference to existing theories in this area.     

The predictive validity of teacher nominations: A five-year followup of at-risk youth

The purpose of this study was to examine the predictive validity of a teacher nomination procedure for identifying at- risk children. Two hundred and twenty-five children were nominated by their teachers as well- adjusted (n= 75), socially withdrawn (n=76), or socially aggressive (n=74) during the fourth grade. Five years later, 198 of these children (88%) were located and their adjustment evaluated. Significant differences among the nominated children were found on a variety of measures, including academic grades, sociometric status, and social behavior. In addition, differences in school dropout and delinquent offenses were noted. Results are discussed in terms of the validity of teacher nomination procedures and their utility in identifying at- risk youth.     

Rate variables and automatized naming in developmental dyslexia

The rate variable in rapid automatized naming (RAN) was investigated in 50 adolescent and 40 adult students with developmental dyslexia, in matched normal controls, and in learning-disabled students without reading difficulties. Visual stimuli depicting familiar colors and common objects were presented in isolation at three film speeds and three exposure times. Film speed and exposure time contributed as independent variables to error rate; and dyslexic subjects of both age groups made significantly more naming errors than controls. Dyslexic subjects also responded with longer naming latencies than controls when the same RAN stimuli were presented in a continuous sequential mode as a matrix of rows and columns. Naming latencies in the sequential presentation were highly correlated with naming errors in the film version. The implications of reduced naming rates for nongraphological stimuli in developmental dyslexia are discussed.     

Stimulus repetition effects and the dimension-feature distinction in alternative targets

The negative repetition effect (NRE) refers to a poorer perception of the target in noise-same-as-target than in noise-alternative-target displays. Using the parenthesis as target and noise that are either identical or different in orientation, we tested predictions derived from a feature-specific inhibition model (Bjork & Murray, 1977) that explains the NRE as arising from inhibitory interactions among channels handling identical inputs. Contrary to our expectation of evidence for orientation-specific inhibition, a positive repetition effect (PRE) was observed. We also found a PRE for the dimension target sets whose stimuli differ only in orientation and an NRE for the feature target sets whose stimuli differ in the number of elements. Further experiments that systematically varied relationships between alternative targets indicate that these basic findings, termed the stimulus attributes effects, do not arise from pattern masking, perceptual strategies, or response bias.     

Discriminative properties of morphine that modulate associations between tastes and lithium chloride

Wistar rats learned to withhold consumption of a target solution when morphine preceded presentation of the target solution and lithium chloride (LiCl) and to consume the same target solution when saline preceded the presentation of the solution. After this serial feature discrimination training, morphine did not block the formation of a Pavlovian association between saccharin and LiCl but did suppress consumption of familiar tap water. After Pavlovian conditioning, morphine blocked the formation of an association between saccharin and LiCl but did not suppress consumption of a familiar tap water solution. The roles of morphine and saline can be interchanged. It appears that the morphine discriminative stimulus is calling up a representation of neither the conditioned stimulus nor the unconditional stimulus alone, but rather a modified representation of some aspect of their association.     

The effects of right hemisphere damage on the pragmatic interpretation of conversational remarks

The ability to interpret conversational utterances was assessed in a group of 12 male patients with unilateral right hemisphere brain damage (RHD) and 12 non-brain-damaged, age-matched male control subjects. Subjects listened to short vignettes which described both the affective tone of the relationship between a speaker and an actor, and the actor's performance on a task. Each vignette concluded with the speaker characterizing the actor's performance. In half of the items, the speaker's utterance was literally true; in the other half, the utterance was literally false and invited a nonliteral interpretation. Results showed no appreciable differences in the performance of control subjects and RHD patients when interpreting literally true utterances. In contrast, the two groups differed reliably when interpreting the pragmatic intent of nonliteral utterances: Control subjects used information about both the actor's performance and the speaker-actor relationship, while RHD patients demonstrated difficulty in using the information about the speaker-actor relationship. Results have implications for patients' understanding of essential elements of conversations, such as characters' internal states and their intentions in employing different forms of literal and nonliteral language.     

The ontogeny of hemispheric specialization: some old hypotheses revisited

This paper re-examines two hypotheses on the ontogeny of hemispheric specialization that long ago fell into disfavor in neuropsychology. It is argued that these hypotheses, equipotentiality and progressive lateralization, may have suffered from misinterpretation that fostered premature acceptance of the developmental invariance view of hemispheric specialization. An alternative view is presented that incorporates both hypotheses within a neurodevelopmental context using anatomical (postmortem) and childhood aphasia data.     

Benzodiazepine receptor ligand influences on acquisition: suggestion of an endogenous modulatory mechanism mediated by benzodiazepine receptors

In rats, pretraining ip administration of the central benzodiazepine receptor antagonist, flumazenil (5.0 mg/kg), or of the inverse agonist, n-butyl-beta-carboline-3-carboxylate (BCCB) (0.2 or 0.5 mg/kg), facilitated retention of a step-down inhibitory avoidance task; the central agonists, clonazepam and diazepam (0.4 or 1.0 mg/kg), had an opposite effect, and the peripheral agonist, 4'-chlordiazepam (1.25 or 6.25 mg/kg), was without effect. Pre- but not post-training flumazenil (2.0 mg/kg) blocked the effect of BCCB (0.5 mg/kg), clonazepam (1.0 mg/kg), or diazepam (1.0 mg/kg) given also pretraining. The post-training administration of all of these drugs had no effect on retention of the avoidance task. Flumazenil (5.0 mg/kg) and BCCB (0.5 mg/kg), given before training, enhanced retention test performance of habituation to a buzzer but not of habituation to an open field. In the three tasks studied, none of the drugs used had any appreciable effect on training session parameters. These results suggest that there is an endogenous mechanism mediated by benzodiazepine agonists, sensitive to inverse agonists, that normally down-regulates acquisition of certain behaviors; this mechanism becomes activated only when the tasks involve or occur with a certain degree of stress or anxiety (i.e., inhibitory avoidance or habituation to the buzzer) and not in less stressful or anxiogenic tasks (i.e., habituation to an open field).     

Values and Recovery From Alcoholism Through Alcoholics Anonymous

This report reviews the literature on the values of alcoholics and addicts in treatment and presents data that suggest a shift in values is involved in recovery from alcoholism through participation in Alcoholics Anonymous and that values clarification and value therapy may be useful in chemical dependency treatment.     

Testosterone and personality among college students and military veterans

Relationships of serum and saliva to personality were examined among 401 college students in four laboratory studies and 5,236 military veterans in one archival study. Among the students, there were few relationships between testosterone and traditional personality measures. Among the veterans, MMPI scores and DSM-III diagnoses showed testosterone related to drug and alcohol abuse, antisocial and generally intemperate behavior, and effective disorders. Consistent with social control theory, correlations were higher among veterans who were lower in socioeconomic status. It appears likely that testosterone has innate effects that are socially undesirable but can be attenuated by bonds between the individual and society. Effect sizes were small, suggesting that testosterone will have noticeable effects only in large populations or individuals who differ markedly from the population mean. Further research should focus upon antisocial correlates of testosterone and conditions that produce marked changes in testosterone levels.