Comprehension of main ideas and details in coherent and noncoherent discourse by aphasic and nonaphasic listeners

Aphasic and nonaphasic listeners' comprehension of main ideas and details within coherent and noncoherent narrative discourse was examined. Coherent paragraphs contained one topic to which all sentences in the paragraph related. Noncoherent paragraphs contained a change in topic with every third or fourth sentence. Each paragraph contained four main ideas and one or more details that related to each main idea. Listeners' responses to yes/no questions following each paragraph yielded the following results: (1) Nonaphasic listeners comprehended the paragraphs better than aphasic listeners. (2) Both aphasic and nonaphasic listeners comprehended main ideas better than they comprehended details. (3) Coherence did not affect comprehension of main ideas for either group. (4) Coherence did not affect comprehension of details by nonaphasic subjects. (5) Coherence affected comprehension of details by aphasic subjects, and their comprehension of details in coherent paragraphs was worse than their comprehension of details in noncoherent paragraphs. There was no significant correlation between Token Test scores and measures of paragraph comprehension.     

Sensitivity to lexical denotation and connotation in brain-damaged patients: A double dissociation?

Sets of words can be grouped in terms of their denotation (cold and warm both refer literally to temperature) or in terms of their connotation (cold and warm connote remoteness and intimacy, respectively). To assess whether these two facets of meaning are dissociable, unilaterally left- and right-hemisphere-damaged patients were presented with word triads and asked to group together the two words that were closest in meaning. Right-hemisphere-damaged patients showed a preserved sensitivity to denotation, and a selective insensitivity to connotative facets of meanings. In contrast, left-hemisphere-damaged patients exhibited a preserved sensitivity to connotation as well as a selective insensitivity to denotative aspects of meanings. Inasmuch as normal control subjects displayed a flexible sensitivity to both denotative and connotative aspects of meaning, the results suggest that unilateral brain damage selectively curtails use of one or the other major aspect of word meaning.     

The nature of the phonological disorder in conduction aphasia

Sequences of attempts to name pictured objects were used to examine phonological dysfunction in three diagnostic subgroups of aphasia. A prevalence of "phonologically-oriented sequences" (i.e., those sequences that contained only attempts with a phonological resemblance to the target word) was found to be a diagnostic criterion for conduction aphasia. When compared to a group of Broca's (n = 7) and Wernicke's (n = 5) aphasics, all the conduction aphasics (n = 6) produced proportionately more of such phonologically-oriented sequences on a picture naming test. An examination of the phonologically-oriented sequences produced by the conduction aphasics indicates that speech production in conduction aphasia involves dysfunction at an early stage of sound-encoding. The theoretical implications of this view are discussed.     

KNOWING BEFORE DOING: DISCRIMINATION BY RATS OF A BRIEF INTERRUPTION OF A TONE

Eight rats' lever presses were reinforced after an interruption in a tone, provided the lever had not been pressed before the tone interruption. After a few sessions, long before the animals reliably refrained from lever pressing before the interruption, the latencies of postinterruption presses (time from the termination of the interruption to the moment of the lever press) dissociated into two classes: short ones for to-be-rewarded presses, and long ones for presses in the other trials, which contained no reward because one or more lever presses had occurred before the interruption. Thus discrimination of impending reinforcement in the current trial occurred before there was evidence of sensitivity to reinforcement in the reinforcement-producing aspect of behavior. This finding is related to Shimp's (1981) contention that the temporal properties of recent behavior are reinforceable, if remembered. The present finding shows that learning to discriminate whether one's behavior has met a contingency, and learning to carry out this behavior, need not go together, implying that memory of temporal properties is probably a necessary but not a sufficient condition for learning the latter.     

Clinician experiences of homework in couples and family therapy: A survey of perceived impact on the working alliance

The process of engaging clients in homework assignments has been studied extensively in research settings, but rarely have the challenges in the implementation of the science been considered in couples and family therapy. A survey was conducted of 226 clinicians regarding (1) their experience of homework adherence (quantity and quality) with couple and family clients, and (2) their experience of the impact of homework non-completion (IHN) on the working alliance. Clinicians working with families reported less overall homework quantity and quality. However, across both couples and family clients, more negative IHN was reported among clinicians experiencing less homework quantity, both in terms of IHN bond (couple ρ = 0.71, p < 0.001; family ρ = 0.78, p < 0.001) and IHN agreement (couples ρ = 0.25, p < 0.001; ρ = 0.19, p = 0.006), and among clinicians with fewer years of clinical experience (r = 0.19, n = 136, p < 0.05). The present findings suggest that, in the context of couples and family therapy, there is a risk of perceived negative IHN on the working alliance. There would be merit to future investigations examining the processes of facilitating homework engagement within the context of a strong working alliance.     

Collective Trauma,Implicit Memories,the Body,and Active Imagination in Jungian Analysis1

This presentation attempts to show the healing potential underlying the inclusion of the patient's body in the analytic process, while honouring and revisiting the understanding of the psyche-body connection described by Jung in his early work. In addition, the author offers reflections on the impact of collective trauma whose aftermath, among others, has been the disappearance of thousands of people, consequently breaking the family genealogy, leaving hundreds of children stripped of their roots and true identity. Referencing clinical material, the author describes how the process of translation and integration—from the sensory-perceptual to the conceptual-symbolic—can be halted on account of collective trauma occurring at an early stage in development. Moreover, it is shown how the potential of the archetype or image schema, linked to the somatic-affective early experiences encoded as implicit memories, can be recovered, when Embodied Active Imagination is included in the analytic work. The patient's bodily gestures and somatic experience may bridge the gap between the preverbal-implicit knowledge and the emergence of emotions and images that allow for the creation of a new symbolic narrative.     

Australia Day or Invasion Day? Perspectives on the Continuing Impact of Colonialism Underlies Public Contestations Around Australia's National Day

The ways in which collective memories are constructed in the present is important in explaining how people choose to commemorate their nation's history. The present research focused on the context of Australia Day, a controversial national holiday that falls on January 26, which is a date that marks the beginning of colonization. We conducted field surveys of community members participating in an Invasion Day protest pushing for Indigenous rights (n = 219) and community members enjoying the public holiday in a public park (n = 174). We found that greater recognition of colonial history explained protesters' (vs. nonprotesters') greater support for changing the date of Australia Day. Further, protesters' lower levels of perceived continuity and higher levels of desired continuity of First Australian culture was linked to greater support for changing the date of Australia Day compared to the nonprotesters. These findings suggest that creating consensus over contested collective memories of a nation's history requires greater recognition of the ongoing impact of past atrocities.     

Exogenous verbal response inhibition in adults who do and do not stutter

IntroductionBehavioral and questionnaire-based studies suggest that children who stutter (CWS) exhibit poorer response inhibition than children who do not stutter (CWNS). However, the behavioral findings in adults who stutter (AWS) are less unequivocal and mainly based on manual response inhibition. Further study is therefore needed, especially given the lack of studies on verbal response inhibition among these groups.MethodsThirteen AWS and 14 adults who do not stutter (AWNS) participated in a verbal stop signal task (SST) in which they were asked to read aloud six Chinese characters as fast as possible during the go-signal and ignore-signal trials and refrain from naming them during the stop-signal trials.ResultsThe two groups showed a comparable response reaction time in the go-signal and ignore-signal trial conditions. Furthermore, there were no significant differences in terms of the stop-signal reaction time (SSRT) and accuracy. However, a significant positive correlation was found between SSRT and the frequency of stuttering in conversation but not in reading.ConclusionCurrent findings seem to provide additional support that exogenously triggered response inhibition among AWS does not differ from AWNS. The association between stuttering frequency and SSRT seems to suggest that individuals with more severe stuttering in conversational speech have reduced exogenous response inhibition. However, this finding needs to be further explored in future studies using different measures of stuttering severity.     

作业中断对任务绩效的影响及心理疲劳的调节作用

作业中断会对中断后行为绩效产生影响,探讨不同疲劳状态下中断对作业绩效影响的认知机制将有助于完善和发展中断的认知理论。本研究采用事件相关电位(ERP),通过在不同心理疲劳状态下执行数学题任务中断、暂停中断和不中断的空间2-back任务,结合行为数据和ERPs结果,分析作业中断对任务绩效的影响以及心理疲劳在其中的调节作用。实验结果发现,中断后诱发的P200和P300振幅显著提高,作业中断使得主任务的注意力资源下降,任务中断的无关信息干扰了主任务工作记忆,而疲劳状态则进一步加剧了中断对注意资源、工作记忆及行为绩效的负面效应。本研究在揭示作业中断认知过程及疲劳对其影响机理的同时,也支持了中断的目标记忆模型。