Word recognition in Alzheimer's disease: Effects of semantic degeneration

Impairments of word recognition in Alzheimer's disease (AD) have been less widely investigated than impairments affecting word retrieval and production. In particular, we know little about what makes individual words easier or harder for patients with AD to recognize. We used a lexical selection task in which participants were shown sets of four items, each set consisting of one word and three non‐words. The task was simply to point to the word on each trial. Forty patients with mild‐to‐moderate AD were significantly impaired on this task relative to matched controls who made very few errors. The number of patients with AD able to recognize each word correctly was predicted by the frequency, age of acquisition, and imageability of the words, but not by their length or number of orthographic neighbours. Patient Mini‐Mental State Examination and phonological fluency scores also predicted the number of words recognized. We propose that progressive degradation of central semantic representations in AD differentially affects the ability to recognize low‐imageability, low‐frequency, late‐acquired words, with the same factors affecting word recognition as affecting word retrieval.     

Reading and lexicalization in opaque and transparent orthographies: Word naming and word learning in English and Spanish

Do skilled readers of opaque and transparent orthographies make differential use of lexical and sublexical processes when converting words from print to sound? Two experiments are reported, which address that question, using effects of letter length on naming latencies as an index of the involvement of sublexical letter–sound conversion. Adult native speakers of English (Experiment 1) and Spanish (Experiment 2) read aloud four- and seven-letter high-frequency words, low-frequency words, and nonwords in their native language. The stimuli were interleaved and presented 10 times in a first testing session and 10 more times in a second session 28 days later. Effects of lexicality were observed in both languages, indicating the deployment of lexical representations in word naming. Naming latencies to both words and nonwords reduced across repetitions on Day 1, with those savings being retained to Day 28. Length effects were, however, greater for Spanish than English word naming. Reaction times to long and short nonwords converged with repeated presentations in both languages, but less in Spanish than in English. The results support the hypothesis that reading in opaque orthographies favours the rapid creation and use of lexical representations, while reading in transparent orthographies makes more use of a combination of lexical and sublexical processing.     

单病种平均住院日影响因素分析

为探讨单病种平均住院日的影响因素,采用多元逐步回归分析,对住院构成前5位病种的平均住院日影响因素进行分析。结果显示,有10个影响因素进入回归方程,不同病种平均住院日影响因素略有不同,是否转科对平均住院日影响最大。在医院管理过程中,需不断加强医院流程管理与改造,实施临床路径,合理制定医院平均住院日指标。     

Dissimilarity cumulation theory in arc-connected spaces

This paper continues the development of the Dissimilarity Cumulation theory and its main psychological application, Universal Fechnerian Scaling [Dzhafarov, E.N and Colonius, H. (2007). Dissimilarity Cumulation theory and subjective metrics. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 51, 290-304]. In arc-connected spaces the notion of a chain length (the sum of the dissimilarities between the chain’s successive elements) can be used to define the notion of a path length, as the limit inferior of the lengths of chains converging to the path in some well-defined sense. The class of converging chains is broader than that of converging inscribed chains. Most of the fundamental results of the metric-based path length theory (additivity, lower semicontinuity, etc.) turn out to hold in the general dissimilarity-based path length theory. This shows that the triangle inequality and symmetry are not essential for these results, provided one goes beyond the traditional scheme of approximating paths by inscribed chains. We introduce the notion of a space with intermediate points which generalizes (and specializes to when the dissimilarity is a metric) the notion of a convex space in the sense of Menger. A space is with intermediate points if for any distinct there is a different point such that (where D is dissimilarity). In such spaces the metric G induced by D is intrinsic: coincides with the infimum of lengths of all arcs connecting to In Universal Fechnerian Scaling D stands for either of the two canonical psychometric increments and (ψ denoting discrimination probability). The choice between the two makes no difference for the notions of arc-connectedness, convergence of chains and paths, intermediate points, and other notions of the Dissimilarity Cumulation theory.     

A Comparison of Study Session Formats on Attendance and Quiz Performance in a College Course

We compared two formats for optional study sessions offered to students in a research methods course. Study sessions alternated between a game format (e.g., Behavioral Jeopardy) and a student-directed question and answer format, presented in counterbalanced order across different sections of the same course. The results of the alternating treatments design in Study 1 indicated that, despite improvements in quiz performance relative to baseline, there were no consistent differences between the two formats on attendance at the study sessions or on weekly quiz performance. Similar results were obtained in a systematic replication (Study 2) in which opportunities to respond to game questions were equated across study sessions.     

工作记忆中的词长效应

工作记忆中的词长效应是指在即时序列回忆中短单词列的成绩优于长单词列的现象。该文首先回顾与词长效应有关的实验研究及阐述对应的理论解释,包括经典的语音回路理论和新近提出的特征模型、整合理论、项目位置权衡理论和SIMPLE理论等,然后介绍在这一方面运用脑成像技术研究的进展,如ERP,PET和fMRI方面的研究,为词长效应理论解释提供了进一步的证据,接着讨论词长效应研究中存在的争议,最后简评各主要理论并展望了今后研究的趋势     

不同照明条件下中国青年女性彩色图片的喜爱肤色

本研究采用类例判断法,在不同光源下对22张图片肤色样本逐一地进行主观评价。使用的照明光源为D65、CWF和A三种标准光源,色温分别为6500K、4150K和2856K。垂直照明,45°观察．肤色样本的视角为2°。实验结果表明：观察者在A光源下比D65光源更容易地评价肤色样本的质量,即在D65光源下的满意样本,在A光源下其喜爱程度趋于提高,而对不满意样本的喜爱程度趋于降低或基本相同;在三种照明条件下,被评为最佳肤色的样本与真实肤色有些偏离,色调略为偏黄,亮度较高,饱和度则非常接近;在肤色的波长范围内,亮度较高而饱和度偏低的肤色样本往往是优选样本。     

Ecological influences in youth crisis shelters: Effects of social density and length of stay on youth problem behaviors

For 472 consecutive days we monitored the number of youths residing in a crisis shelter for adolescents, the average length of stay for the youths residing in the shelter on each day, and the number of problem behaviors occurring within the shelter on a daily basis. We analyzed these data using a combination of time series and logistic regression techniques to fit a model that would predict the occurrence of a problem behavior on any given day. After controlling for significant time trends in the data, our results indicate that both the number of youths in the shelter and the proportion of youths who have resided in the shelter longer than 14 days are significantly associated with a problem behavior occurring on any given day. The number of youths in the shelter and the probability of a problem behavior occurring correlated significantly. However, as the proportion of youths who resided in the shelter longer than 14 days increased, the probability of a problem behavior occurring decreased.     

Cognate effects in sentence context depend on word class,L2 proficiency,and task

Length effects in the lexical decision latencies of children might indicate that children rely on sublexical processing and essentially approach the task as a naming task. We examined this possibility by means of the effects of neighbourhood size and articulatory suppression on lexical decision performance. Sixty-six beginning and 62 advanced readers performed a lexical decision task in a standard, articulatory suppression, or tapping condition. We found length effects on words and nonwords in the children's lexical decisions. However, the effects of neighbourhood size were similar to those reported for adult lexical decisions, rather than the effects previously found in children's naming. In addition, no effect was found of articulatory suppression. Both findings suggest that, despite clear length effects, children do not adopt a naming task approach but, like adults, base lexical decisions mainly on a lexical search. These results pose a challenge for several computational models of reading.