Aphasia in a polyglot

A Greek-born aphasic who had been able to speak four languages (Romanian, Russian, Greek, German) was tested quantitatively for verbal expression (standard interview indexes) and verbal reception (fifth part of the Token Test). The form of aphasia (qualitative aspect) was found to be identical for all four languages. Quantitatively, his performance in the four languages was different, with the languages used most during the past 20 years (Romanian and Russian) being less impaired. Nevertheless, verbal reception was equally impaired quantitatively in all four languages. Treatment with semantic-syntagmatic methods performed in Romanian had a beneficial effect on speech in the other languages as well. The authors feel that the expressive disturbance noted in aphasia reflects involvement of deep as well as of surface structures of language, but the receptive disturbance reflects involvement of the deep structures only. This may account for quantitative discrepancies in expression without discrepancy in reception among the four languages, as well as the qualitatively identical features of the disturbance in verbal expression and reception.     

Relationship between career maturity and self-concepts of suburban and urban middle- and urban lower-class preadolescent black males

The relationship between career maturity and self-concepts of 252 sixth-grade black males was investigated. Student samples of suburban and urban middle- and urban lower-class were drawn from 42 different school settings located in Monroe, Erie, and Westchester Counties of New York State. The Attitude Scale of the Career Maturity Inventory and the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory were used to assess the association of career maturity and self-concepts. Results indicated relatively weak-positive relationships between career maturity and self-concepts. Significant career maturity differences were found. However, self-concepts of the three groups were not statistically significantly different. Of the set of independent variables predicting and estimating variance accounted for (socioeconomic status, family intactness, place of residence, and reading), socioeconomic status was found to have the strongest predictive value on career maturity. It was suggested that researchers examine elementary school black students' career development in view of the group with whom they identify most.     

Facilitating paper recycling: effects of prompts, raffles, and contests

The effects of prompts and reinforcement to promote paper recycling were compared in six university dormitories. For a Prompt condition, residents were urged to recycle paper for ecological reasons via flyers distributed to each room. For a Raffle contingency, residents were given one raffle ticket for every pound of paper brought to a collection center. For a Contest contingency, two dorms were paired and the dorm whose residents delivered the most paper won $15 for its treasury. Contingency awareness was strengthened via a flyer placed under the door of each resident's room. Flyers alone had little effect in increasing paper-recycling behaviors, but the raffle (substantially) and the contest (somewhat) increased the amount of paper brought to a dorm's recycling center. Students whose rooms were closest to the collection center showed the greatest participation. Removal of the reinforcement contingencies resulted in a return to baseline levels.     

Physical distance and attraction: An intensification effect

This study was designed to test the effects of both interaction distance and the quality of the interaction upon attraction. It was found that close interaction distances amplified the quality of the interaction so that for a positive interaction there was more liking for a close rather than a far partner, while for a negative interaction a close partner was liked less. The implications of this finding for research concerning crowding is discussed, as are possible explanatory mechanisms.     

Influence of linguistic complexity,rate of presentation,and interphrase pause time on auditory-verbal comprehension of adult aphasic patients

Among the variables affecting comprehension of linguistic stimuli by aphasic subjects are syntactic complexity and processing time. Comprehension performance of 15 aphasic adults was studied while altering the rate of speech presentation and varying the pause time between the major phrases within sentences of increasing grammatical complexity.Simple Active Affirmative Declarative Sentences, Negative, and Passive sentences were presented (1) at the rate of 150 words per minute (wpm) with 1-sec interphrase pause time (IPT); (2) 150 wpm with no pauses; (3) 120 wpm with 1-sec IPT; (4) 120 wpm with no pauses added.Performance was seen to vary with increasing syntactical complexity and as a function of processing time. Greater comprehension was seen with active affirmative than negative; greater with passive affirmative than with active negative. Clinical implications are discussed. Subjects demonstrated greater comprehension when sentences were presented at slower than normal rate; addition of interphrase pause time intervals aided comprehension. Combining slower rate of presentation and IPT intervals provided greatest increase in auditory processing time and showed concomitant increase in comprehension performance.     

Masked emotional priming beyond global valence activations

An immense body of research demonstrates that emotional facial expressions can be processed unconsciously. However, it has been assumed that such processing takes place solely on a global valence-based level, allowing individuals to disentangle positive from negative emotions but not the specific emotion. In three studies, we investigated the specificity of emotion processing under conditions of limited awareness using a modified variant of an affective priming task. Faces with happy, angry, sad, fearful, and neutral expressions were presented as masked primes for 33 ms (Study 1) or 14 ms (Studies 2 and 3) followed by emotional target faces (Studies 1 and 2) or emotional adjectives (Study 3). Participants’ task was to categorise the target emotion. In all three studies, discrimination of targets was significantly affected by the emotional primes beyond a simple positive versus negative distinction. Results indicate that specific aspects of emotions might be automatically disentangled in addition to valence, even under conditions of subjective unawareness.     

Prospective and Concurrent Affective Dynamics in Self-Injurious Thoughts and Behaviors: An Examination in Young Adult Women

Affective dynamics, assessed using ecological momentary assessment (EMA), provide a nuanced understanding of within-person fluctuations of negative affect (NA) and positive affect (PA) in daily life. NA and PA dynamics have been associated with psychopathology and response to psychological treatments. NA and PA dynamics have been rarely studied concurrently in association with self-injurious thoughts and behaviors (SITB), transdiagnostic difficulties encountered regularly in clinical and community settings. Here we present EMA data from a large, diverse sample of young adult women with high rates of SITB to examine NA and PA dynamics (mean intensity, variability, and inertia). Specifically, we considered the prospective associations between past-year suicidal thoughts and past-year nonsuicidal self-injury and affective dynamics, as well as the concurrent associations between affective dynamics, EMA-reported suicidal thoughts, and EMA-reported urges for nonsuicidal self-injury. Results demonstrate that elevated mean NA and NA variability are robustly associated with all types of SITB assessed prospectively or concurrently. Interestingly, these associations were weakest for past-year nonsuicidal self-injurious behaviors, relative to past-year and concurrent suicidal or nonsuicidal self-injurious thoughts. Past-year suicidal thoughts further predicted increased NA inertia. Decreased PA inertia was associated with past-year nonsuicidal self-injury behavior, as well as concurrent EMA suicidal thoughts. We found no associations (prospective or concurrent) between SITB and mean PA intensity or PA variability. These results highlight the importance of understanding affective processes to develop real-world interventions to prevent nonsuicidal self-injury and suicidal behavior in daily life.