Maternal verbal interaction in different situations with infants born prematurely or at term

The present study investigates whether maternal verbal behaviour, in terms of the use of declaratives, interrogatives and imperatives, can be accounted for by gestational age of the infant, or the situation in which mother–infant pairs were observed. Thirteen mothers and their premature and term babies were observed twice in three situations, namely playing with, feeding and changing their infants. The first observation took place at a mean gestational age of 40 weeks and the second observation took place approximately 7 weeks later. All mothers used more imperatives during play than during changing or feeding situations. Mothers used more interrogatives during play than during changing or feeding, and they used more declaratives during both changing and playing than during feeding. In contrast, gestational age influenced only the complexity of maternal interrogatives. It is concluded that situational factors are significant and hence that the mother's role has to be judged relative to the context in which mothers and infants are observed. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

幼儿复述能力的发展及其与言语工作记忆的关系

采用语音呈现、无图片辅助的复述任务,探查5～6岁幼儿故事复述能力的发展特点及其与工作记忆的关系。结果发现,幼儿复述能力在学前期存在明显的发展变化,6岁幼儿宏观结构的得分及微观结构中的叙事总词汇数、复句占T单元比率、连词使用总数等均显著好于5岁幼儿;幼儿的复述能力表现出性别差异;工作记忆与复述的宏观结构和微观结构的不同指标之间均表现出显著相关,并对幼儿复述能力的发展具有独立贡献。结果表明,言语工作记忆是与幼儿复述能力相关的重要认知因素。     

Comparison of two aggression inventories

Two recently developed questionnaire measures of aggression, the Aggression Questionnaire [Buss and Perry (1992; Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 63:452–459]; and the Aggression Inventory [Gladue (1991a); Psychological Reports 68:675–684], were administered to a British sample (N=320) of men and women undergraduates. Both questionnaires contain subscales measuring physical and verbal aggression; the other scales of the Aggression Questionnaire measure anger and hostility, and those of the Aggression Inventory measure impulsiveness and avoidance of aggression. The factor structure of scales were assessed using confirmatory factor analysis. The interrelations of the subscales were calculated in both cases: anger was independently related to verbal and physical aggression and to hostility on the Aggression Questionnaire; impulsivity, and verbal and physical aggression were associated on the Aggression Inventory. Sex differences were largest on the two physical subscales, of lesser magnitude but still significantly different for the two verbal subscales, but absent for anger and hostility. This supports the hypothesis that sex differences in aggression are larger for more escalated forms of aggression. The physical and verbal subscales of the two questionnaires were each highly correlated with one another and the impulsive subscale of the Aggression Inventory highly correlated with the anger subscale of the Aggresion Questionnaire. Thus, two aggression questionnaires developed in the US not only produce similar associations between subscales and sex differences among a British undergraduate sample, but also show high correlations between their respective scales. © 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

材料呈现方式对不同音乐训练经验的汉语儿童英语言语记忆的影响

选取受过音乐训练和未受过音乐训练的汉语儿童为被试,在同一呈现速率条件下以歌曲、韵律和朗读三种方式呈现一段英文材料,从单词、句子和篇章三个层面探讨音乐训练经验和材料呈现方式对第二语言言语记忆的影响。结果发现：1）音乐组的记忆成绩高于非音乐组;2）相比于朗读材料,儿童对于歌曲和韵律材料的记忆效果更好;3）在单词和句子层面,音乐组和非音乐组的差异主要体现在歌曲材料上,而篇章层面没有类似发现。该结果表明音乐训练和材料呈现方式均能影响儿童的第二语言言语记忆,并且音乐训练效应对材料呈现方式表现出选择性     

Dementia with Lewy bodies: a pure case

A pure case of autopsy-confirmed dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is described. The patient presented with distinctive verbal fluency deficits in the context of mild language impairment, intact recognition memory, and impaired paragraph recall. Neuroimaging (CT and SPECT) showed progressive medial temporal lobe atrophy. Neuropathology revealed Lewy bodies, degeneration in the substantia nigra, nucleus basalis of Meynert (Nakano & Hirano, 1984), and locus ceruleus, but no pathology characteristic of Alzheimer's disease. It is in this sense that the case is "pure" DLB. Early neuropsychological diagnosis of DLB is essential (Salmon et al., 1996) given the potentially fatal hazard of neuroleptics (McKeith et al., 1992) and the difficulties associated with clinical neurological diagnoses (Litvan et al., 1998).     

Saying and doing: A commentary on a contingency-space analysis

This article addresses the contingency-space analysis (Matthews, Shimoff, & Catania, 1987) of the verbal regulation of behavior. From an applied perspective, the conceptualization of the relationship between saying and doing Matthews et al. present may be more complex than is necessary. The central issue in correspondence investigations is a simple one: does correspondence between what people say and what they do occur? The focus of this paper is on the applied and clinical importance of the relationship between verbalizations and relevant behavior and the implications for future research.