Central auditory processing. V. Ear advantages for acoustic stimuli in baboons

Four baboons (Papio cynocephalus) were tested using food as reward for ear advantages in the monaural discrimination of pure tones, three-tone musical chords, synthetically constructed consonant-vowels, and vowels. All four animals showed highly significant and reproducible ear advantages for each class of acoustic stimulus with marked individual differences in the direction of their ear asymmetry. The results obtained in these experiments represent the first evidence of ear asymmetries for different classes of acoustic stimuli in a nonhuman species. Further, the ear advantages found in these animals under monaural conditions resemble those obtained with dichotic presentation in human subjects and thus suggest that the baboon may be a valuable model of central auditory processing of various types of acoustic stimuli in man.     

An awareness approach to the covert symptoms of stuttering

Speech-language clinicians working with the confirmed stuttering client are often faced with the clinical management of the covert symptoms of stuttering in addition to the more observable and measurable overt symptoms. The authors report the successful use of awareness techniques to exaggerate the subjective experience of these covert symptoms and encourage the use of these techniques as an adjunct to the counseling and desensitization procedures traditionally employed. A transcribed clinical management session in which several awareness techniques are used to aid the client in an introspective examination of “anticipation of stuttering,” is analyzed in order to reach some specific recommendations for using awareness techniques in the clinical management of the covert symptoms of stuttering.     

How a high working memory capacity can increase proactive interference

Previous findings suggested that a high working memory capacity (WMC) is potentially associated with a higher susceptibility to proactive interference (PI) if the latter is measured under high cognitive load. To explain such a finding, we propose to consider susceptibility to PI as a net effect of individual executive processes and the intrinsic potential for PI. With the latter, we refer to the amount of information that is activated at a given time and that has the potential to exert PI subsequently. In two studies deploying generalized linear mixed models, susceptibility to PI was modeled as the decline of performance over trials of a complex span task. The results revealed that a higher WMC was associated with a higher susceptibility to PI. Moreover, the number of stimuli recalled in one trial as a proxy variable for the intrinsic potential for PI negatively affected memory performance in the subsequent trial.     

Combined cognitive-behavioral therapy for fibromyalgia: Effects on polysomnographic parameters and perceived sleep quality

Background/Objective: Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is one of the first-line treatments in the management of fibromyalgia (FM) and it has been applied with considerable success to treat the psychological processes associated with pain and insomnia. We hypothesized that treating sleep and pain jointly with new combined modalities of CBT may offer greater sleep-related benefits to patients. Method: Thirty-nine female patients with FM and insomnia were randomly allocated to receive CBT centered on pain (CBT-P) or combined CBT focused on pain and insomnia (CBT-C). Participants were assessed at baseline and post-treatment with the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and an ambulatory polysomnography.Results: Participants who received CBT-P showed increases in time in bed and total sleep time and decreases in light sleep, but there was no improvement in perceived sleep quality. Participants who received combined CBT-C showed more meaningful improvements related to refreshing sleep (i.e., higher sleep efficiency and less time awake and longer time in Stage 4 sleep), and these changes were concordant with a significant improvement in self-perceived sleep quality. Conclusions: This study suggests that new CBT-C approaches can improve insomnia-related clinical aspects.     

Children's working memory: investigating performance limitations in complex span tasks

Three experiments investigated the roles of resource-sharing and intrinsic memory demands in complex working memory span performance in 7- and 9-year-olds. In Experiment 1, the processing complexity of arithmetic operations was varied under conditions in which processing times were equivalent. Memory span did not differ as a function of processing complexity. In Experiment 2, complex memory span was assessed under three conditions designed to vary both processing and intrinsic storage demands: mental arithmetic (significant attentional demands-requires storage), odd/even judgments (significant attentional demands-no storage required), and articulatory suppression (minimal attentional demands--no storage required). The highest memory spans were found in the articulatory suppression task. Span was at an intermediate level with arithmetic processing and was lowest for processing involving odd/even judgments. This difference in memory span for processing tasks involving arithmetic processing and odd/even judgments was eliminated in Experiment 3 when the pacing requirements of the arithmetic and odd/even processing tasks were equated. The results are consistent with the view that complex memory span performance is disrupted by processing activities that divert attentional resources from storage.     

Memory for action events: findings in neurological patients

Encoding action phrases by enacting leads normally to better memory performance than verbal encoding. In order to gain additional insight into the representational basis of the enactment effect, neurological patients are contrasted with healthy participants. Persons suffering from Parkinson's disease, which primarily impairs the motor system, and patients suffering from Frontal Lobe Syndrome, which primarily affects action-related planning processes, were involved. We investigated whether the enactment effect would be differentially affected by these disorders. In addition, the characteristics of information processing after encoding by enacting was analyzed by varying memory material (unrelated versus clusterable actions) and by adding an encoding condition that included obligatory action planning (director condition). The findings indicate that the impact of motor information for the enactment effect is not dominant compared to the role of action-related cognitive and motivational processes, in particular planning processes. The findings of the two experiments are explained within traditional conceptual memory theories.     

On the function of weak phantasmata in perception: Phenomenological,psychological and neurological clues for the transcendental function of imagination in perception

Weak phantasmata have a decisive and specifically transcendental function in our everyday perception. This paper provides several different arguments for this claim based on evidence from both empirical psychology and phenomenology.I would like to express my gratitude to Bill McKenna for his help with the English text and his critical remarks. This paper was presented in the Cork Roundtable for Philosophy in March 2003, at University College, Cork, and I would like to thank Julia Jansen, Tony O’Connor and the other participants for their constructive critique.     

Pain coping and social support as predictors of long-term functional disability and pain in early rheumatoid arthritis

Pain-related avoidance factors and social resources, as assessed by pain coping and social support, are supposed to have lasting effects on functional disability and pain in chronic pain disorders. As a follow-up to a prospective study demonstrating short-term effects after one year (Behaviour Research and Therapy, 36, 179-193, 1998), the role of pain coping and social support at the time of diagnosis was investigated in relationship to the long-term course of functional disability and pain after three and five years in 78 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), taking into account personality characteristics of neuroticism and extraversion, clinical status and use of medication. In line with findings at the one-year follow-up, results showed that more passive pain coping predicted functional disability at the three-year, but not the five-year follow-up. In addition, low levels of social support at the time of diagnosis consistently predicted both functional disability and pain at the three and five-year follow-ups. Results indicate that pain coping and social support, assessed very early in the disease process, can affect long-term functional disability and pain in RA, and suggest that early interventions focusing on pain-related avoidance factors and social resources for patients at risk may beneficially influence long-term outcomes in RA.