汉语的认知神经心理学研究

认知神经心理学为探讨语言的心理机制开辟了一条新途径,使得人们对心理词典的认识日渐深入。该文着重介绍了汉语方面的认知神经心理学研究成果,其中包括语义系统、语音输出词典、语音输出buffer的信息表征方式,以及汉字的书写机制与阅读机制     

ACQUISITION OF MANDS AND TACTS WITH CONCURRENT ECHOIC TRAINING

Previous studies have identified a number of effective teaching procedures to increase verbal behavior in individuals with developmental disabilities. However, few studies have evaluated modifications of treatment procedures when children fail to acquire communication skills. In the present investigation, a 4‐year‐old boy with autism failed to acquire unprompted mands and tacts during mand‐only and tact‐only training. Results indicated that combining echoic training with mand or tact training increased unprompted manding and tacting.     

The metamorphosis of the statistical segmentation output: Lexicalization during artificial language learning

This study combined artificial language learning (ALL) with conventional experimental techniques to test whether statistical speech segmentation outputs are integrated into adult listeners’ mental lexicon. Lexicalization was assessed through inhibitory effects of novel neighbors (created by the parsing process) on auditory lexical decisions to real words. Both immediately after familiarization and post-one week, ALL outputs were lexicalized only when the cues available during familiarization (transitional probabilities and wordlikeness) suggested the same parsing (Experiments 1 and 3). No lexicalization effect occurred with incongruent cues (Experiments 2 and 4). Yet, ALL differed from chance, suggesting a dissociation between item knowledge and lexicalization. Similarly contrasted results were found when frequency of occurrence of the stimuli was equated during familiarization (Experiments 3 and 4). Our findings thus indicate that ALL outputs may be lexicalized as far as the segmentation cues are congruent, and that this process cannot be accounted for by raw frequency.     

Imitation of body postures and hand movements in children with specific language impairment

Within the domain-general theory of language impairment, this study examined body posture and hand movement imitation in children with specific language impairment (SLI) and in their age-matched peers. Participants included 40 children with SLI (5 years 3 months to 6 years 10 months of age) and 40 children with typical language development (5 years 3 months to 6 years 7 months of age). Five tests were used to examine imitation and its underlying cognitive and motor skills such as kinesthesia, working memory, and gross motor coordination. It was hypothesized that children with SLI show a weakness in imitation of body postures and that this deficit is not equally influenced by the underlying cognitive and motor skills. There was a group effect in each cognitive and motor task, but only gross motor coordination proved to be a strong predictor of imitation in children with SLI. In contrast, hand movement imitation was strongly predicted by performance in the Kinesthesia task in typically developing children. Thus, the findings show not only that children with SLI performed more poorly on the imitation tasks than their typically developing peers but also that the groups’ performances showed qualitative differences. The results of the current study provide additional support to the view that the weaknesses in children with SLI are not limited to the verbal domain.     

Kindergarten literacy assessment of English Only and English language learner students: An examination of the predictive validity of three phonemic awareness measures

The study assessed the ability of English phonemic awareness measures to predict kindergarten reading performance and determine factors that contributed to growth trajectories on those measures for English Only (EO) and English language learner (ELL) students. Using initial sound fluency (ISF), phoneme segmentation fluency (PSF), and a combined phoneme segmentation task (CPST), students' beginning of kindergarten scores were used to predict end-of-kindergarten Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF) and reading (WRMT-R/NU). Regression analyses revealed that ISF and CPST early in kindergarten predicted variance in NWF and WRMT-R/NU. PSF did not predict reading performance over ISF or CPST. While gender was a significant factor in the growth curves across the measures, results revealed no significant difference for EO and ELL students.     

“Hearing voices”: Auditory hallucinations as failure of top‐down control of bottom‐up perceptual processes

Auditory hallucination is a key characteristic of schizophrenia that seriously debilitates the patient, with consequences for social engagement with others. Hallucinatory experiences are also observed in healthy individuals in the general population who report “hearing voices” in the absence of an external acoustic input. A view on auditory hallucinations and “hearing voices” is presented that regards such phenomena as perceptual processes, originating from speech perception areas in the left temporal lobe. Healthy individuals “hearing voices” are, however, often aware that the experience comes from inner thought processes, which is not reported by hallucinating patients. A perceptual model can therefore, not alone explain the difference in the phenomenology of how the “voices heard” are attributed to either an inner or outer cause. An expanded model is thus presented which takes into account top‐down cognitive control, localized to prefrontal cortical areas, to inhibit and re‐attribute the perceptual mis‐representations. The expanded model is suggested to be empirically validated using a dichotic listening speech perception paradigm with instructions for top‐down control of attention focus to either the right or left side in auditory space. It is furthermore suggested to use fMRI to validate the temporal and frontal lobe neuronal correlates of the cognitive processes involved in auditory hallucinations.     

Syntactic processing in Korean-English bilingual production: Evidence from cross-linguistic structural priming

A structural priming experiment investigated whether grammatical encoding in production consists of one or two stages and whether oral bilingual language production is shared at the functional or positional level [Bock, J. K., Levelt, W. (1994). Language production. Grammatical encoding. In M. A. Gernsbacher (Ed.), Handbook of psycholinguistics (pp. 945-984). San Diego, CA: Academic Press] by manipulating syntactic structure and argument order in structurally parallel Korean and English dative sentences. The results revealed that structural priming across languages can occur when both languages share syntactic structure, independent of argument order. Specifically, cross-linguistic argument-order-independent structural priming in canonical Korean postpositional and English prepositional dative structures was observed, providing evidence for shared bilingual syntactic processing occurring at the abstract, functional level within a two-stage grammatical encoding process. This is the first demonstration of cross-linguistic priming of argument-order-independent structural information.     

Union and separation in the therapy of pervasive developmental disorders and ADHD

Abstract :  This paper discusses the characteristics of psychotherapy for pervasive developmental disorders (PDD) in the context of the curative effects of the movement of images. The 'autistic spectrum' is widened here and includes not only PDD, but also ADHD. The main common characteristic in these two sets of disorders seems to be the lack of a subject, which manifests itself as the absence of awareness of otherness and difficulties with boundaries and language.
In these cases a normal psychotherapy is ineffective as it presupposes an established subject. However a psychotherapeutic approach with these patients can contribute to the emergence of a subject. In severe cases the process of union and separation which is enacted either in the therapeutic relationship or in symbolic play leads to the birth of a subject, and of language. In milder cases, such as ADHD, the moments of separation and confrontation with the therapist suffice.
I will discuss a case of my own with Asperger's syndrome in which union and separation in the play therapy occurred simultaneously. This indicates that union and separation are not a consecutive process, but are simultaneous and lead to dialectical movement. However, in neurotic cases with an established subjectivity the symbolic meaning of image plays a central role. This corresponds to Jung's understanding of image in alchemy.     

When words do not mean what they say. Self-agency and the coercive use of language

Abstract :  This paper explores the relationship between language and the development of self-agency. I suggest that a child discovers that he or she actually exists as a person with a mind and desires through the mirroring response he or she creates in the parent. This developmental stage of 'teleological' level of self-agency is related to Terrence Deacon's concept of indexical communication. The coercive effect this has on others is explored and the way language may become subverted from its symbolic function and used in the service of indexical communication is discussed, illustrated by examples from the plays of Harold Pinter.     

Berkeley’s Contingent Necessities

The paper provides an account of necessary truths in Berkeley based upon his divine language model. If the thesis of the paper is correct, not all Berkeleian necessary truths can be known a priori.