Aphasia in left-handers. Comparison of aphasia profiles and language recovery in non-right-handed and matched right-handed patients.

The present retrospective analysis reports two studies. In Study 1, clinical aspects of aphasia are compared in right-handed (RH) and non-right-handed (NRH) patients; in Study 2, recovery from aphasia is compared in RH and NRH aphasic patients with a minimum of 5 months of daily language rehabilitation. From a continuous series of 1200 brain-damaged subjects, 24 NRH patients with a vascular lesion documented by computerized tomography were selected. In 19 cases the lesion was in the left hemisphere and in 5 cases in the right hemisphere. For 14 NRH patients, a RH subject with similar lesion, matched for age, education, length of illness, etiology (ischemic vs. hemorrhagic), and, when possible, sex was found. Presence and type of aphasia were compared in the two patients of the same pair and were found similar except for Pair 14; the RH subject had global aphasia and the NRH had conduction-like aphasia. Fifteen NRH patients were rehabilitated and reexamined at least 5 months after the first examination. Recovery of the 12 patients with a left-hemisphere lesion was compared with recovery of a group of RH subjects and no significant differences were found. Recovery of the three patients with right-hemisphere lesions is described. It is concluded that differences in type of aphasia and recovery between RHs and NRHs have been overemphasized in the past and must be reconsidered.     

Suicidal behavior in Italy: data, trends and guidelines for a suicide intervention/prevention policy.

Even though in Italy, as in the majority of Mediterranean countries, the increase in suicide rates is not among the highest in Europe, between 1969 and 1989 it showed a sharp upswing (+43% among males and +31% among females). In terms of geographical differences, the regions with the highest suicide rate are the northern ones (up to twice the national average). The age groups with the highest suicide risk are those over 74 years (in 1989 the rate among males over 65 was the highest of all: 31.3 per 100,000). The differences in the between-sexes distribution show that among females over 65 years old the suicide rate rose by 70% between 1974 and 1989, versus 77% for males of the same age. The preliminary epidemiological results of one of two Italian centers are presented. These centers are collaborating with the WHO/EURO Multicenter Study on Parasuicide; parasuicide rates are higher for females than for males (55.9 per 100,000, as against 38.1 for males), while the age group at highest risk is seen to be young women (15-24 years), with a specific rate of 115.6.     

Repeatability of mae-geri-keage in traditional karate: a three-dimensional analysis with black-belt karateka

In karate, performance also depends on a correct body shape, and the repeatability of standardized movements conditions the effectiveness of techniques. The execution of mae-geri-keage (frontal snap kick) was studied in 13 karateka (1st-5th dan). The 3D trajectories of 13 body landmarks were analyzed by an optoelectronic instrument while each karateka performed 10 repetitions of the movement. For each karateka and repetition, the standard deviations of the spatial coordinates x, y, z for each landmark were computed. A total standard deviation of the single participant was also calculated. Two experienced karateka performed with the best repeatability (smaller standard deviation) while executing the studied kick. Generally, the best repeatability was observed in the horizontal plane. The lower variability was observed in hips and head. Ankle and knee of the dominant limb had the worse. The method could detect athletes particularly gifted for the discipline. Moreover, it could help in the identification of those parts of body that do not repeat the movement with the desired precision.     

The subjective duration of ramped and damped sounds

Two experiments demonstrate that the perceived durations of sounds as long as 1 sec are influenced by the sounds' amplitude envelopes, extending Schlauch, Ries, and DiGiovanni's (2001) observations on sounds of 200-msec duration. Sounds with a monotonic decay (i.e., damped sounds) are heard as substantially shorter than both steady sounds and those with a monotonic increase of level (i.e., ramped sounds). Neither a reaction time (Experiments 1 and 2) nor a staircase (Experiment 2) procedure supported a sensory explanation for these different subjective durations. The results are compatible with the suggestion of Stecker and Hafter (2000) that listeners exclude part of the tails of damped sounds in the computation of their subjective durations.     

Naturally together: pitch-height and brightness as coupled factors for eliciting the SMARC effect in non-musicians

Psychological Research - Pitch-height is often labeled spatially (i.e., low or high) as a function of the fundamental frequency of the tone. This correspondence is highlighted by the so-called...     

Sex difference in subjective duration of looming and receding sounds

Looming sounds (sounds increasing in intensity over time) are more salient than receding sounds (a looming sound reversed in time). For example, they are estimated as being longer, louder, and more changing in loudness than receding sounds. Some authors interpret the looming salience as evolutionarily adaptive, because it increases the margins of safety of the perceiver in the case of preparatory behaviours (e.g., a motor reaction to an approaching sound source). Recently, Neuhoff et al (2009, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 35 225-234) found that females more than males show overestimation of the spatiotemporal properties of virtually simulated looming sound sources. Here, I investigated whether the sex difference could be observed for the subjective duration of looming and receding sounds, and found that females more than males overestimate the duration of looming sounds in comparison to receding sounds.     

Audiovisual bounce-inducing effect: When sound congruence affects grouping in vision

Two disks moving from opposite points in space, overlapping, and stopping at one another’s starting point can be seen as either bouncing off one another or streaming through one another. With silent displays, observers report streaming, whereas, if a sound is played when the disks are in the overlap region, observers report bouncing. The change in perception is thought to be modulated by a lack of attention that inhibits the integration of the motion signal when disks overlap and by the sound that increases the congruence of the display, in comparison with a real elastic bounce. Here, we accompanied the disks’ motion with either a bounce-congruent sound (a billiard ball) or with bounce-incongruent sounds (a water drop, a firework). When the sound was switched on 200 msec before the disks’ overlap, (1) all the audiovisual displays induced more bounce responses than did the silent display, but (2) the bounce-congruent sound induced more bounce responses than did the bounceincongruent sounds. However, when the sound was switched on at the disks’ overlap, only the first result was observed. These results highlight both the role of attention and that of sound congruence.     

Do we hear size or sound? Balls dropped on plates

The aim of this study is to examine whether it is possible to recover directly the size of an object from the sound of an impact. Specifically, the study is designed to investigate whether listeners can tell the size of a ball from the sound when it is dropped on plates of different diameters (on one, two, or three plates in Experiments 1, 2, and 3, respectively). In this paradigm, most of the sound produced is from the plate rather than the ball. Listeners were told neither how many different balls or plates were used nor the materials of the balls and plates. Although listeners provided reasonable ball size estimates, their judgments were influenced by the size of the plate: Balls were judged to be larger when dropped on larger plates. Moreover, listeners were generally unable to recognize either ball and plate materials or the number of plates used in Experiments 2 and 3. Finally, various acoustic properties of the sounds are shown to be correlated with listeners' judgments.