Verb Comprehension Deficits in Probable Alzheimer's Disease

Studies of lexical comprehension in probable Alzheimer's disease (pAD) have focused almost exclusively on nouns. In the following preliminary study, we examined whether lexical comprehension for verbs is also impaired in 25 pAD patients. The semantic meaning of motion verbs, cognition verbs, and perception verbs was assessed with a triadic comparison task. Structural meaning associated with these verbs was evaluated by asking the patients to judge the coherence of sentence frames that accept these verbs naturally or awkwardly. We found that pAD patients are significantly impaired at identifying semantic relations among verbs. pAD patients also encountered significantly more difficulty judging the coherence of sentences than control subjects. Correlation and regression analyses demonstrated that semantic characteristics of verbs are projected from the verbs' sentence frames in control subjects, but there was minimal evidence for such a structural–semantic relationship in pAD. We consider several possible explanations for our preliminary observations of an impairment that has consequences for processing both semantic and structural aspects of verb meaning.     

Understanding the abstract role of speech in communication at 12 months

Adult humans recognize that even unfamiliar speech can communicate information between third parties, demonstrating an ability to separate communicative function from linguistic content. We examined whether 12-month-old infants understand that speech can communicate before they understand the meanings of specific words. Specifically, we test the understanding that speech permits the transfer of information about a Communicator's target object to a Recipient. Initially, the Communicator selectively grasped one of two objects. In test, the Communicator could no longer reach the objects. She then turned to the Recipient and produced speech (a nonsense word) or non-speech (coughing). Infants looked longer when the Recipient selected the non-target than the target object when the Communicator had produced speech but not coughing (Experiment 1). Looking time patterns differed from the speech condition when the Recipient rather than the Communicator produced the speech (Experiment 2), and when the Communicator produced a positive emotional vocalization (Experiment 3), but did not differ when the Recipient had previously received information about the target by watching the Communicator's selective grasping (Experiment 4). Thus infants understand the information-transferring properties of speech and recognize some of the conditions under which others' information states can be updated. These results suggest that infants possess an abstract understanding of the communicative function of speech, providing an important potential mechanism for language and knowledge acquisition.     

One percent ability and ninety-nine percent perspiration: a study of a Japanese memorist

In 1987, Hideaki Tomoyori, a Japanese memorist, set a world record for reciting the first 40,000 digits of pi. The authors report results from a series of tests that give a view of Tomoyori's memory performance compared with that of a control group, matched for age and educational level. He showed very good scores on tasks with digits, such as digit memory span tasks and 5 x 5 number matrix learning, although some of the control participants were nearly as good. In contrast, his performance was not particularly good for learning word lists and story recall. Overall, his performance on the tasks does not suggest that he has superior cognitive abilities. We believe that his extraordinary memory performance in reciting the digits of pi results from his effective use of a combination of digit-syllable transformations and imagery mnemonics developed from extensive practice. These results are consistent with the skilled memory framework.     

Formation of FeNi with L10-ordered structure using high-pressure torsion

FeNi with the L1₀-ordered structure is formed over an astronomical timescale in meteorites. In this study, severe plastic deformation using high-pressure torsion (HPT) is employed for the production of the L1₀ structure in the laboratory. Its formation is confirmed by X-ray diffraction analysis and transmission electron microscopy. Processing of elemental nanopowders by HPT is an effective method for the formation of the L1₀ phase, which is enhanced by the addition of Co to FeNi or annealing after HPT. The formation of the phase must be associated with enhanced diffusion through HPT.     

Hydrogen diffusion in ultrafine-grained iron with the body-centered cubic crystal structure

The role of grain boundaries in Fe on hydrogen diffusion has been investigated by electrochemical permeation tests using ultrafine-grained Fe produced by high-pressure torsion (HPT) processing. Permeation tests were also conducted on cold-rolled and water-quenched Fe to understand the trapping effect of dislocations and vacancies. Hydrogen diffusion was delayed in all these discs. However, the delay mechanism in the HPT-processed disc was different from that in rolled and water-quenched Fe. Grain boundaries do not act as trapping sites but slow the diffusion. The diffusion coefficients of hydrogen were significantly decreased by HPT processing on account of the high activation energy for hydrogen diffusion in grain boundaries.     

Can an agent's false belief be corrected by an appropriate communication? Psychological reasoning in 18-month-old infants

Do 18-month-olds understand that an agent's false belief can be corrected by an appropriate, though not an inappropriate, communication? In Experiment 1, infants watched a series of events involving two agents, a ball, and two containers: a box and a cup. To start, agent1 played with the ball and then hid it in the box, while agent2 looked on. Next, in agent1's absence, agent2 moved the ball from the box to the cup. When agent1 returned, agent2 told her "The ball is in the cup!" (informative-intervention condition) or "I like the cup!" (uninformative-intervention condition). During test, agent1 reached for either the box (box event) or the cup (cup event). In the informative-intervention condition, infants who saw the box event looked reliably longer than those who saw the cup event; in the uninformative-intervention condition, the reverse pattern was found. These results suggest that infants expected agent1's false belief about the ball's location to be corrected when she was told "The ball is in the cup!", but not "I like the cup!". In Experiment 2, agent2 simply pointed to the ball's new location, and infants again expected agent1's false belief to be corrected. These and control results provide additional evidence that infants in the second year of life can attribute false beliefs to agents. In addition, the results suggest that by 18 months of age infants expect agents' false beliefs to be corrected by relevant communications involving words or gestures.     

15-month-old infants detect violations in pretend scenarios

Are 15-month-old infants able to detect a violation in the consistency of an event sequence that involves pretense? In Experiment 1, infants detected a violation when an actor pretended to pour liquid into one cup and then pretended to drink from another cup. In Experiment 2, infants no longer detected a violation when the cups were replaced with objects not typically used in the context of drinking actions, either shoes or tubes. Experiment 3 showed that infants' difficulty in Experiment 2 was not due to the use of atypical objects per se, but arose from the novelty of seeing an actor appearing to drink from these objects. After receiving a single familiarization trial in which they observed the actor pretend to drink from either a shoe or a tube, infants now detected a violation when the actor pretended to pour into and to drink from different shoes or tubes. Thus, at an age (or just before the age) when infants are beginning to engage in pretend play, they are able to show comprehension of at least one aspect of pretense in a violation-of-expectation task: specifically, they are able to detect violations in the consistency of pretend action sequences.     

A comparison of chinchilla auditory evoked response and behavioral response thresholds

The auditory sensitivity of the chinchilla was measured by both a behavioral and auditory evoked-response (AER) procedure. There was no significant difference in either the waveform or the threshold of the AER recorded over the tentorium from awake and anesthetized chinchillas. The chinchilla threshold for pure tones appears to be more sensitive when measured by the behavioral technique than by the AER method. Both the AER and behavioral response of three chinchillas exposed to a 105 dB SPL octave band of noise centered at 2 KHz for 3 h shifted markedly after the exposure. However, the difference between the AER and behavioral response threshold was reduced or absent. During the process of recovery the difference between the two responses begins to reappear.     

Infants learn phonotactic regularities from brief auditory experience

Two experiments investigated whether novel phonotactic regularities, not present in English, could be acquired by 16.5-month-old infants from brief auditory experience. Subjects listened to consonant-vowel-consonant syllables in which particular consonants were artificially restricted to either initial or final position (e.g. /baep/ not /paeb/). In a later head-turn preference test, infants listened longer to new syllables that violated the experimental phonotactic constraints than to new syllables that honored them. Thus, infants rapidly learned phonotactic regularities from brief auditory experience and extended them to unstudied syllables, documenting the sensitivity of the infant's language processing system to abstractions over linguistic experience.