On the representation of language in the right hemisphere of right-handed people.

Laterality experiments using reaction time were conducted to assess the performance of the right hemisphere of normal people on verbal tasks. The results show that if the task calls for pictorial encoding of visually presented verbal material, then the right hemisphere's performance is superior to that of the left. When the task calls for linguistic analysis, the minor hemisphere displays no aptitude in dealing with the task. The latter finding is at variance with data from split-brain research. To reconcile these differences, it was proposed that language functions, though represented in the right hemisphere of normal people, are functionally localized in the left. When the control which the left hemisphere exerts over the right is weakened or removed, e.g., by commissurotomy, right hemisphere language is released. The application of this model to other neurological phenomena is briefly discussed.     

Monaural right-ear advantage in a target-identification task

Subjects were monaurally presented with consonant—vowel syllables to the right or left ear, with or without simultaneous noise to the other ear. The subject's task on each trial was to indicate whether or not the item presented was the target item /ba/. A right-ear advantage in reaction time was obtained: 14 msec for target items, 6 msec for nontarget items. The size of this effect was comparable in the presence vs. absence of competing noise. No consistent individual differences were found in the size of the right-ear advantage for this task, although such differences were obtained in a dichotic-perception pretest.It is argued that data of this type do not permit inferences about the use of particular ear/hemisphere neural pathways.     

Language acquisition following hemidecortication: Linguistic superiority of the left over the right hemisphere

The language development of three 9- and 10-year-old children possessing only a right or a left hemisphere was studied. Surgical removal of one brain half antedated the beginning of speech, so each child has acquired speech and language with only one hemisphere. Different configurations of language skill have developed in the two isolated hemispheres: phonemic and semantic abilities are similarly developed but syntactic competence has been asymmetrically acquired. In relation to the left, the right brain half is deficient in understanding auditory language, especially when meaning is conveyed by syntactic diversity; detecting and correcting errors of surface syntactic structure; repeating stylistically permuted sentences; producing tag questions which match the grammatical features of a heard statement; determining sentence implication; integrating semantic and syntactic information to replace missing pronouns; and performing judgments of word interrelationships in sentences. Language development in an isolated right hemisphere, even under seizure-free conditions, results in incomplete language acquisition.     

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.     

Contralateral interference and ear advantages for identification of three-element patterns

Recent experience with attempts to test relatively simple patterns such as three-tone sequences in a traditional dichotic-listening paradigm indicates that when such sequences are used for both target and contralateral interference, performance tends to be low in both ears and not useful for measuring or comparing ear advantages in various target conditions. It is reported that tests with a variety of sounds presented contralaterally to three-element patterns show that several such sounds can (1) allow performance in at least one ear to remain above floor values, (2) result in performance in at least one ear that is below ceiling, and (3) reveal ear advantages that are similar in direction and magnitude to those seen with the traditional dichotic paradigm.     

Simulation of Preference Information in an Interactive Reference Point‐Based Method for the Bi‐Objective Inventory Routing Problem

In the research area of multiple criteria decision making, very few publications exist that explicitly design the simulation of a decision maker (DM) in an interactive approach. For this reason, we outline some methods widely used in the literature to identify common assumptions of simulating the DM's responses and the required input preference information. Our paper aims at covering the identified gap by introducing experimental concepts. Such concepts are used for theoretical analyses of a combined search‐and‐decision‐making procedure. Simulating the DM is a fruitful idea because the algorithm can be tested without integrating a human decision maker. Finally, we conduct experiments based on the proposed settings for a multiobjective inventory routing problem, which is a relevant and challenging logistic problem. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.