Do age-related word retrieval difficulties appear (or disappear) in connected speech?

We conducted a comprehensive literature review of studies of word retrieval in connected speech in healthy aging and reviewed relevant aphasia research that could shed light on the aging literature. Four main hypotheses guided the review: (1) Significant retrieval difficulties would lead to reduced output in connected speech. (2) Significant retrieval difficulties would lead to a more limited lexical variety in connected speech. (3) Significant retrieval difficulties would lead to an increase in word substitution errors and in pronoun use as well as to greater dysfluency and hesitation in connected speech. (4) Retrieval difficulties on tests of single-word production would be associated with measures of word retrieval in connected speech. Studies on aging did not confirm these four hypotheses, unlike studies on aphasia that generally did. The review suggests that future research should investigate how context facilitates word production in old age.     

呼吸机的撤离

呼吸机的脱机和撤离过程是一个重要的临床问题。呼吸机撤离是呼吸机由全部同期支持转为自主呼吸过程。在脱机过程中不必要的延迟会增加机械通气的复杂性,如肺炎或气道损伤,同时增加治疗的费用。撤机分为脱机和撤离人工气道,撤机参数对撤机后果预测的准确率不高,本文论述了对自主呼吸试验失败原因及实施自主呼吸方法以及完整呼吸机撤离过程。     

现代社会伦理秩序的发生路径

“自发生成论”和“理性创设论”是传统道德哲学关于社会伦理秩序生成的两种理论模式。“自发生成论”认为,伦理道德不是纯粹人类理性设计的产物,而是人类行为实践的自然结果;“理性创设论”认为,伦理道德是人类自觉建构的结果,是人类理性创设的产物。这两种理论模式都以抽象的人性为其理论基础,无法合理解释个体与类之间的伦理关系。基于现实伦理实体的“创生拓展”应成为现代社会伦理秩序的发生路径。     

The wisdom of the body: Listeners' autonomic arousal distinguishes between spontaneous and posed vocal emotions

It has been the matter of much debate whether perceivers are able to distinguish spontaneous vocal expressions of emotion from posed vocal expressions (e.g., emotion portrayals). In this experiment, we show that such discrimination can be manifested in the autonomic arousal of listeners during implicit processing of vocal emotions. Participants (N = 21, age: 20–55 years) listened to two consecutive blocks of brief voice clips and judged the gender of the speaker in each clip, while we recorded three measures of sympathetic arousal of the autonomic nervous system (skin conductance level, mean arterial blood pressure, pulse rate). Unbeknownst to the listeners, the blocks consisted of two types of emotional speech: spontaneous and posed clips. As predicted, spontaneous clips yielded higher arousal levels than posed clips, suggesting that listeners implicitly distinguished between the two kinds of expression, even in the absence of any requirement to retrieve emotional information from the voice. We discuss the results with regard to theories of emotional contagion and the use of posed stimuli in studies of emotions.     

Motor Schema Formation and Retention in Young Children

The variability-of-practice hypothesis, a major prediction of Schmidt’s (1975) motor schema theory, was tested in an attempt to investigate motor-schema formation. In addition, schema retention was observed after a 2-week retention interval. The task involved preschool children in tossing a bean bag for appropriate distance. Four treatment groups received 100 practice trials equally divided over five days. Variation was provided by varying the weights of the bean bags. The testing situations involved tossing a criterion weighted bean bag as well as a novel weighted bean bag which none of the groups had experienced previously. In addition, all groups were tested on a new but similar task. The results supported the variability-of-practice hypothesis in terms of schema formation and transfer to novel tasks in the same movement class. After a two-week retention interval, loss in performance was significantly less for the group with variability of practice than all other groups.