Nonword Repetition and Vocabulary Knowledge as Predictors of Children's Phonological and Semantic Word Learning.

PubMed

Adlof, Suzanne M; Patten, Hannah

2017-03-01

This study examined the unique and shared variance that nonword repetition and vocabulary knowledge contribute to children's ability to learn new words. Multiple measures of word learning were used to assess recall and recognition of phonological and semantic information. Fifty children, with a mean age of 8 years (range 5-12 years), completed experimental assessments of word learning and norm-referenced assessments of receptive and expressive vocabulary knowledge and nonword repetition skills. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses examined the variance in word learning that was explained by vocabulary knowledge and nonword repetition after controlling for chronological age. Together with chronological age, nonword repetition and vocabulary knowledge explained up to 44% of the variance in children's word learning. Nonword repetition was the stronger predictor of phonological recall, phonological recognition, and semantic recognition, whereas vocabulary knowledge was the stronger predictor of verbal semantic recall. These findings extend the results of past studies indicating that both nonword repetition skill and existing vocabulary knowledge are important for new word learning, but the relative influence of each predictor depends on the way word learning is measured. Suggestions for further research involving typically developing children and children with language or reading impairments are discussed.

On the Dissociation of Word/Nonword Repetition Effects in Lexical Decision: An Evidence Accumulation Account.

PubMed

Perea, Manuel; Marcet, Ana; Vergara-Martínez, Marta; Gomez, Pablo

2016-01-01

A number of models of visual-word recognition assume that the repetition of an item in a lexical decision experiment increases that item's familiarity/wordness. This would produce not only a facilitative repetition effect for words, but also an inhibitory effect for nonwords (i.e., more familiarity/wordness makes the negative decision slower). We conducted a two-block lexical decision experiment to examine word/nonword repetition effects in the framework of a leading "familiarity/wordness" model of the lexical decision task, namely, the diffusion model (Ratcliff et al., 2004). Results showed that while repeated words were responded to faster than the unrepeated words, repeated nonwords were responded to more slowly than the nonrepeated nonwords. Fits from the diffusion model revealed that the repetition effect for words/nonwords was mainly due to differences in the familiarity/wordness (drift rate) parameter. This word/nonword dissociation favors those accounts that posit that the previous presentation of an item increases its degree of familiarity/wordness.

On the Dissociation of Word/Nonword Repetition Effects in Lexical Decision: An Evidence Accumulation Account

PubMed Central

Perea, Manuel; Marcet, Ana; Vergara-Martínez, Marta; Gomez, Pablo

2016-01-01

A number of models of visual-word recognition assume that the repetition of an item in a lexical decision experiment increases that item's familiarity/wordness. This would produce not only a facilitative repetition effect for words, but also an inhibitory effect for nonwords (i.e., more familiarity/wordness makes the negative decision slower). We conducted a two-block lexical decision experiment to examine word/nonword repetition effects in the framework of a leading “familiarity/wordness” model of the lexical decision task, namely, the diffusion model (Ratcliff et al., 2004). Results showed that while repeated words were responded to faster than the unrepeated words, repeated nonwords were responded to more slowly than the nonrepeated nonwords. Fits from the diffusion model revealed that the repetition effect for words/nonwords was mainly due to differences in the familiarity/wordness (drift rate) parameter. This word/nonword dissociation favors those accounts that posit that the previous presentation of an item increases its degree of familiarity/wordness. PMID:26925021

Serial Position Effects in Nonword Repetition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gupta, P.; Lipinski, J.; Abbs, B.; Lin, P.H.

2005-01-01

A growing body of research has emphasized the linkage between performance in immediate serial recall of lists, nonword repetition, and word learning. Recently, it has been reported that primacy and recency effects are obtained in repetition of individual syllables within nonwords (Gupta, in press). Five experiments examined whether such…

Nonword Repetition and Vocabulary Knowledge as Predictors of Children's Phonological and Semantic Word Learning

PubMed Central

Patten, Hannah

2017-01-01

Purpose This study examined the unique and shared variance that nonword repetition and vocabulary knowledge contribute to children's ability to learn new words. Multiple measures of word learning were used to assess recall and recognition of phonological and semantic information. Method Fifty children, with a mean age of 8 years (range 5–12 years), completed experimental assessments of word learning and norm-referenced assessments of receptive and expressive vocabulary knowledge and nonword repetition skills. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses examined the variance in word learning that was explained by vocabulary knowledge and nonword repetition after controlling for chronological age. Results Together with chronological age, nonword repetition and vocabulary knowledge explained up to 44% of the variance in children's word learning. Nonword repetition was the stronger predictor of phonological recall, phonological recognition, and semantic recognition, whereas vocabulary knowledge was the stronger predictor of verbal semantic recall. Conclusions These findings extend the results of past studies indicating that both nonword repetition skill and existing vocabulary knowledge are important for new word learning, but the relative influence of each predictor depends on the way word learning is measured. Suggestions for further research involving typically developing children and children with language or reading impairments are discussed. PMID:28241284

Repetition priming of words and nonwords in Alzheimer's disease and normal aging

PubMed Central

Ober, Beth A.; Shenaut, Gregory K.

2014-01-01

Objective This study examines the magnitude and direction of nonword and word lexical decision repetition priming effects in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and normal aging, focusing specifically on the negative priming effect sometimes observed with repeated nonwords. Method Probable Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients (30), elderly normal controls (34), and young normal controls (49) participated in a repetition priming experiment using low-frequency words and word-like nonwords with a letter-level orthographic orienting task at study followed by a lexical decision test phase. Results Although participants' reaction times were longer in AD compared to elderly normal, and elderly normal compared to young normal, the repetition priming effect and the degree to which the repetition priming effect was reversed for nonwords compared to words was unaffected by AD or normal aging. Conclusion AD patients, like young and elderly normal participants, are able to modify (in the case of words) and create (in the case of nonwords) long-term memory traces for lexical stimuli, based on a single orthographic processing trial. The nonword repetition results are discussed from the perspective of new vocabulary learning commencing with a provisional lexical memory trace created after orthographic encoding of a novel word-like letter string. PMID:25000325

Repetition Blindness Occurs in Nonwords

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Harris, Catherine L.; Morris, Alison L.

2004-01-01

Theorists have predicted that repetition blindness (RB) should be absent for nonwords because they do not activate preexisting mental types. The authors hypothesized that RB would be observed for nonwords because RB can occur at a sublexical level. Four experiments showed that RB is observed for word-nonword pairs (noon noof), orthographically…

Serial Recall and Nonword Repetition in Reading Disabled Children.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roodenrys, Steven; Stokes, Julie

2001-01-01

Examines the performance on verbal short-term memory tasks of specifically reading disabled children relative to reading-age matched and chronological-age matched control groups. Examines memory span for words, highly wordlike nonwords and less wordlike nonwords, speech rates for these items, and nonword repetition. Suggests that there is a…

A Framework for Crosslinguistic Nonword Repetition Tests: Effects of Bilingualism and Socioeconomic Status on Children's Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chiat, Shula; Polišenská, Kamila

2016-01-01

Purpose: As a recognized indicator of language impairment, nonword repetition has unique potential for distinguishing language impairment from difficulties due to limited experience and knowledge of a language. This study focused on a new Crosslinguistic Nonword Repetition framework, comprising 3 tests that vary the phonological characteristics of…

Motor Control and Nonword Repetition in Specific Working Memory Impairment and SLI

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Archibald, Lisa M. D.; Joanisse, Marc F.; Munson, Benjamin

2013-01-01

Purpose: Debate around the underlying cognitive factors leading to poor performance in the repetition of nonwords by children with developmental impairments in language has centered around phonological short-term memory, lexical knowledge, and other factors. This study examines the impact of motor control demands on nonword repetition in groups of…

Nonword Repetition Problems in Children with Specific Language Impairment: A Deficit in Accessing Long-Term Linguistic Representations?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Leclercq, Anne-Lise; Maillart, Christelle; Majerus, Steve

2013-01-01

Children with specific language impairment (SLI) consistently show poor nonword repetition (NWR) performance. However, the reason for these difficulties remains a matter of intensive debate. Nonword repetition is a complex psycholinguistic task that heavily relies upon phonological segmentation and phonological knowledge, and even lexical…

A Pilot Study Comparing Two Nonword Repetition Tasks for Use in a Formal Test Battery

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tattersall, Patricia J.; Nelson, Nickola Wolf; Tyler, Ann A.

2015-01-01

Two sets of nonwords (with and without true morphemes) were compared for their ability to differentiate students in Grades 1 through 12 with and without language impairment (36 each; N = 72) on a nonword repetition task. Results indicated that either nonword type could contribute to differential diagnosis.

Speech Motor Sequence Learning: Acquisition and Retention in Parkinson Disease and Normal Aging.

PubMed

Whitfield, Jason A; Goberman, Alexander M

2017-06-10

The aim of the current investigation was to examine speech motor sequence learning in neurologically healthy younger adults, neurologically healthy older adults, and individuals with Parkinson disease (PD) over a 2-day period. A sequential nonword repetition task was used to examine learning over 2 days. Participants practiced a sequence of 6 monosyllabic nonwords that was retested following nighttime sleep. The speed and accuracy of the nonword sequence were measured, and learning was inferred by examining performance within and between sessions. Though all groups exhibited comparable improvements of the nonword sequence performance during the initial session, between-session retention of the nonword sequence differed between groups. Younger adult controls exhibited offline gains, characterized by an increase in the speed and accuracy of nonword sequence performance across sessions, whereas older adults exhibited stable between-session performance. Individuals with PD exhibited offline losses, marked by an increase in sequence duration between sessions. The current results demonstrate that both PD and normal aging affect retention of speech motor learning. Furthermore, these data suggest that basal ganglia dysfunction associated with PD may affect the later stages of speech motor learning. Findings from the current investigation are discussed in relation to studies examining consolidation of nonspeech motor learning.

Orthography and Modality Influence Speech Production in Adults and Children.

PubMed

Saletta, Meredith; Goffman, Lisa; Hogan, Tiffany P

2016-12-01

The acquisition of literacy skills influences the perception and production of spoken language. We examined if orthography influences implicit processing in speech production in child readers and in adult readers with low and high reading proficiency. Children (n = 17), adults with typical reading skills (n = 17), and adults demonstrating low reading proficiency (n = 18) repeated or read aloud nonwords varying in orthographic transparency. Analyses of implicit linguistic processing (segmental accuracy and speech movement stability) were conducted. The accuracy and articulatory stability of productions of the nonwords were assessed before and after repetition or reading. Segmental accuracy results indicate that all 3 groups demonstrated greater learning when they were able to read, rather than just hear, the nonwords. Speech movement results indicate that, for adults with poor reading skills, exposure to the nonwords in a transparent spelling reduces the articulatory variability of speech production. Reading skill was correlated with speech movement stability in the groups of adults. In children and adults, orthography interacts with speech production; all participants integrate orthography into their lexical representations. Adults with poor reading skills do not use the same reading or speaking strategies as children with typical reading skills.

Orthography and Modality Influence Speech Production in Adults and Children

PubMed Central

Goffman, Lisa; Hogan, Tiffany P.

2016-01-01

Purpose The acquisition of literacy skills influences the perception and production of spoken language. We examined if orthography influences implicit processing in speech production in child readers and in adult readers with low and high reading proficiency. Method Children (n = 17), adults with typical reading skills (n = 17), and adults demonstrating low reading proficiency (n = 18) repeated or read aloud nonwords varying in orthographic transparency. Analyses of implicit linguistic processing (segmental accuracy and speech movement stability) were conducted. The accuracy and articulatory stability of productions of the nonwords were assessed before and after repetition or reading. Results Segmental accuracy results indicate that all 3 groups demonstrated greater learning when they were able to read, rather than just hear, the nonwords. Speech movement results indicate that, for adults with poor reading skills, exposure to the nonwords in a transparent spelling reduces the articulatory variability of speech production. Reading skill was correlated with speech movement stability in the groups of adults. Conclusions In children and adults, orthography interacts with speech production; all participants integrate orthography into their lexical representations. Adults with poor reading skills do not use the same reading or speaking strategies as children with typical reading skills. PMID:27942710

The Non-Word Repetition Task as a Clinical Marker of Specific Language Impairment in Spanish-Speaking Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Girbau, Dolors

2016-01-01

Forty native Spanish-speaking children (age 8;0-10;3), 20 with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) and 20 with Typical Language Development (TLD), received a battery of psycholinguistic tests, IQ, hearing screenings, and the Spanish Non-word Repetition Task (NRT). The children's repetition of 20 non-words was scored. The percentage of correct…

Nonword Repetition and Phoneme Elision in Adults Who Do and Do Not Stutter

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Byrd, Courtney T.; Vallely, Megann; Anderson, Julie D.; Sussman, Harvey

2012-01-01

The purpose of the present study was to explore the phonological working memory of adults who stutter through the use of a non-word repetition and a phoneme elision task. Participants were 14 adults who stutter (M = 28 years) and 14 age/gender matched adults who do not stutter (M = 28 years). For the non-word repetition task, the participants had…

A cross-linguistic study of real-word and non-word repetition as predictors of grammatical competence in children with typical language development

PubMed Central

Dispaldro, Marco; Deevy, Patricia; Altoe, Gianmarco; Benelli, Beatrice; Leonard Purdue, Laurence B.

2013-01-01

Background Although relationships among non-word repetition, real-word repetition and grammatical ability have been documented, it is important to study whether the specific nature of these relationships is tied to the characteristics of a given language. Aims The aim of this study is to explore the potential cross-linguistic differences (Italian and English) in the relationship among non-word repetition, real-word repetition, and grammatical ability in three- and four-year-old children with typical language development. Methods & Procedures To reach this goal, two repetition tasks (one real-word list and one non-word list for each language) were used. In Italian the grammatical categories were the third person plural inflection and the direct-object clitic pronouns, while in English they were the third person singular present tense inflection and the past tense in regular and irregular forms. Outcomes & Results A cross-linguistic comparison showed that in both Italian and English, non-word repetition was a significant predictor of grammatical ability. However, performance on real-word repetition explained children’s grammatical ability in Italian but not in English. Conclusions & Implications Abilities underlying non-word repetition performance (e.g., the processing and/or storage of phonological material) play an important role in the development of children’s grammatical abilities in both languages. Lexical ability (indexed by real-word repetition) showed a close relationship to grammatical ability in Italian but not in English. Implications of the findings are discussed in terms of cross-linguistic differences, genetic research, clinical intervention and methodological issues. PMID:21899673

A cross-linguistic study of real-word and non-word repetition as predictors of grammatical competence in children with typical language development.

PubMed

Dispaldro, Marco; Deevy, Patricia; Altoé, Gianmarco; Benelli, Beatrice; Leonard, Laurence B

2011-01-01

Although relationships among non-word repetition, real-word repetition and grammatical ability have been documented, it is important to study whether the specific nature of these relationships is tied to the characteristics of a given language. The aim of this study is to explore the potential cross-linguistic differences (Italian and English) in the relationship among non-word repetition, real-word repetition, and grammatical ability in three-and four-year-old children with typical language development. To reach this goal, two repetition tasks (one real-word list and one non-word list for each language) were used. In Italian the grammatical categories were the third person plural inflection and the direct-object clitic pronouns, while in English they were the third person singular present tense inflection and the past tense in regular and irregular forms. A cross-linguistic comparison showed that in both Italian and English, non-word repetition was a significant predictor of grammatical ability. However, performance on real-word repetition explained children's grammatical ability in Italian but not in English. Abilities underlying non-word repetition performance (e.g., the processing and/or storage of phonological material) play an important role in the development of children's grammatical abilities in both languages. Lexical ability (indexed by real-word repetition) showed a close relationship to grammatical ability in Italian but not in English. Implications of the findings are discussed in terms of cross-linguistic differences, genetic research, clinical intervention and methodological issues. © 2011 Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists.

Nonword Repetition Priming in Lexical Decision Reverses as a Function of Study Task and Speed Stress

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zeelenberg, Rene; Wagenmakers, Eric-Jan; Shiffrin, Richard M.

2004-01-01

The authors argue that nonword repetition priming in lexical decision is the net result of 2 opposing processes. First, repeating nonwords in the lexical decision task results in the storage of a memory trace containing the interpretation that the letter string is a nonword; retrieval of this trace leads to an increase in performance for repeated…

Masked nonword repetition effects in yes/no and go/no-go lexical decision: a test of the evidence accumulation and deadline accounts.

PubMed

Perea, Manuel; Gómez, Pablo; Fraga, Isabel

2010-06-01

The pattern of masked repetition priming effects for word and nonword targets differs across tasks: Masked-priming effects in lexical decision occur for positive responses (i.e., words), but not for negative responses (nonwords), whereas masked-priming effects in the cross-case same-different task occur for positive responses (same), but not for negative responses (different)--regardless of lexical status. Here, we examined whether masked nonword priming effects are greater when the task involves an active go response to nonwords than when it involves the standard yes/no procedure in lexical decision. The obtained masked repetition priming effect for nonwords was of similar size in yes/no and go/no-go tasks. This finding is compatible with accounts of nonword priming that posit that nonword responses are produced by actively accumulating evidence for the nonword alternative in yes/no and go/no-go procedures, whereas it is inconsistent with the assumption of a deadline for no responses in the yes/no task.

Nonword Repetition in Children and Adults: Effects on Movement Coordination

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sasisekaran, Jayanthi; Smith, Anne; Sadagopan, Neeraja; Weber-Fox, Christine

2010-01-01

Hearing and repeating novel phonetic sequences, or novel nonwords, is a task that taps many levels of processing, including auditory decoding, phonological processing, working memory, speech motor planning and execution. Investigations of nonword repetition abilities have been framed within models of psycholinguistic processing, while the motor…

Dissociating mere exposure and repetition priming as a function of word type.

PubMed

Butler, Laurie T; Berry, Dianne C; Helman, Shaun

2004-07-01

The mere exposure effect is defined as enhanced attitude toward a stimulus that has been repeatedly exposed. Repetition priming is defined as facilitated processing of a previously exposed stimulus. We conducted a direct comparison between the two phenomena to test the assumption that the mere exposure effect represents an example of repetition priming. In two experiments, having studied a set of words or nonwords, participants were given a repetition priming task (perceptual identification) or one of two mere exposure (affective liking or preference judgment) tasks. Repetition priming was obtained for both words and nonwords, but only nonwords produced a mere exposure effect. This demonstrates a key boundary for observing the mere exposure effect, one not readily accommodated by a perceptual representation systems (Tulving & Schacter, 1990) account, which assumes that both phenomena should show some sensitivity to nonwords and words.

Phonological Working Memory for Words and Nonwords in Cerebral Cortex.

PubMed

Perrachione, Tyler K; Ghosh, Satrajit S; Ostrovskaya, Irina; Gabrieli, John D E; Kovelman, Ioulia

2017-07-12

The primary purpose of this study was to identify the brain bases of phonological working memory (the short-term maintenance of speech sounds) using behavioral tasks analogous to clinically sensitive assessments of nonword repetition. The secondary purpose of the study was to identify how individual differences in brain activation were related to participants' nonword repetition abilities. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure neurophysiological response during a nonword discrimination task derived from standard clinical assessments of phonological working memory. Healthy adult control participants (N = 16) discriminated pairs of real words or nonwords under varying phonological working memory load, which we manipulated by parametrically varying the number of syllables in target (non)words. Participants' cognitive and phonological abilities were also measured using standardized assessments. Neurophysiological responses in bilateral superior temporal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, and supplementary motor area increased with greater phonological working memory load. Activation in left superior temporal gyrus during nonword discrimination correlated with participants' performance on standard clinical nonword repetition tests. These results suggest that phonological working memory is related to the function of cortical structures that canonically underlie speech perception and production.

Oral-diadochokinetic rates for Hebrew-speaking school-age children: real words vs. non-words repetition.

PubMed

Icht, Michal; Ben-David, Boaz M

2015-02-01

Oral-diadochokinesis (DDK) tasks are a common tool for evaluating speech disorders. Usually, these tasks involve repetitions of non-words. It has been suggested that repeating real words can be more suitable for preschool children. But, the impact of using real words with elementary school children has not been studied yet. This study evaluated oral-DDK rates for Hebrew-speaking elementary school children using non-words and real words. The participants were 60 children, 9-11 years old, with normal speech and language development, who were asked to repeat "pataka" (non-word) and "bodeket" (Hebrew real word). Data replicate the advantage generally found for real word repetition with preschoolers. Children produced real words faster than non-words for all age groups, and repetition rates were higher for the older children. The findings suggest that adding real words to the standard oral-DDK task with elementary school children may provide a more comprehensive picture of oro-motor function.

Phonological Working Memory for Words and Nonwords in Cerebral Cortex

PubMed Central

Ghosh, Satrajit S.; Ostrovskaya, Irina; Gabrieli, John D. E.; Kovelman, Ioulia

2017-01-01

Purpose The primary purpose of this study was to identify the brain bases of phonological working memory (the short-term maintenance of speech sounds) using behavioral tasks analogous to clinically sensitive assessments of nonword repetition. The secondary purpose of the study was to identify how individual differences in brain activation were related to participants' nonword repetition abilities. Method We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure neurophysiological response during a nonword discrimination task derived from standard clinical assessments of phonological working memory. Healthy adult control participants (N = 16) discriminated pairs of real words or nonwords under varying phonological working memory load, which we manipulated by parametrically varying the number of syllables in target (non)words. Participants' cognitive and phonological abilities were also measured using standardized assessments. Results Neurophysiological responses in bilateral superior temporal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, and supplementary motor area increased with greater phonological working memory load. Activation in left superior temporal gyrus during nonword discrimination correlated with participants' performance on standard clinical nonword repetition tests. Conclusion These results suggest that phonological working memory is related to the function of cortical structures that canonically underlie speech perception and production. PMID:28631005

Now You See It, Now You Don't: Repetition Blindness for Nonwords

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Morris, Alison L.; Still, Mary L.

2008-01-01

Repetition blindness (RB) for nonwords has been found in some studies, but not in others. The authors propose that the discrepancy in results is fueled by participant strategy; specifically, when rapid serial visual presentation lists are short and participants are explicitly informed that some trials will contain repetitions, participants are…

Shortened Nonword Repetition Task (NWR-S): A Simple, Quick, and Less Expensive Outcome to Identify Children with Combined Specific Language and Reading Impairment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

le Clercq, Carlijn M. P.; van der Schroeff, Marc P.; Rispens, Judith E.; Ruytjens, Liesbet; Goedegebure, André; van Ingen, Gijs; Franken, Marie-Christine

2017-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this research note was to validate a simplified version of the Dutch nonword repetition task (NWR; Rispens & Baker, 2012). The NWR was shortened and scoring was transformed to correct/incorrect nonwords, resulting in the shortened NWR (NWR-S). Method: NWR-S and NWR performance were compared in the previously published…

Unintended imitation in nonword repetition.

PubMed

Kappes, Juliane; Baumgaertner, Annette; Peschke, Claudia; Ziegler, Wolfram

2009-12-01

Verbal repetition is conventionally considered to require motor-reproduction of only the phonologically relevant content of a perceived linguistic stimulus, while imitation of incidental acoustic properties of the stimulus is not an explicit part of this task. Exemplar-based theories of speech processing, however, would predict that imitation beyond linguistic reproduction may occur in word repetition. Five experiments were conducted in which verbal audio-motor translations had to be performed under different conditions. Nonwords varying in phonemic content, in vocal pitch (F(0)), and in speaking style (schwa-syllable expression) were presented. We experimentally varied the factors response delay (repetition vs. shadowing), intention-to-repeat (repetition vs. pseudo-naming), and phonological load (repetition vs. transformation). The responses of ten healthy participants were examined for phonemic accuracy and for traces of para-phonological imitation. Two aphasic patients with phonological impairments were also included, to find out if lesions to left anterior or posterior perisylvian cortex interfere with imitation. In the healthy participants, significant imitation of both F(0) and phonetic style was observed, with markedly stronger effects for the latter. Strong imitation was also found in an aphasic patient with a lesion to left anterior perisylvian cortex, whereas almost no imitation occurred in a patient with a lesion to the posterior language area. The degree of unintended imitation was modulated by each of the three independent factors introduced here. The results are discussed on the background of cognitive and neurolinguistic theories of imitation.

Nonword Repetition Errors of Children with and without Specific Language Impairments (SLI)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Burke, Heidi L.; Coady, Jeffry A.

2015-01-01

Background: Two ubiquitous findings from the literature are that (1) children with specific language impairments (SLI) repeat nonwords less accurately than peers with typical language development (TLD), and (2) all children repeat nonwords with frequent phonotactic patterns more accurately than low-probability nonwords. Many studies have examined…

Role of auditory non-verbal working memory in sentence repetition for bilingual children with primary language impairment.

PubMed

Ebert, Kerry Danahy

2014-01-01

Sentence repetition performance is attracting increasing interest as a valuable clinical marker for primary (or specific) language impairment (LI) in both monolingual and bilingual populations. Multiple aspects of memory appear to contribute to sentence repetition performance, but non-verbal memory has not yet been considered. To explore the relationship between a measure of non-verbal auditory working memory (NVWM) and sentence repetition performance in a sample of bilingual children with LI. Forty-seven school-aged Spanish-English bilingual children with LI completed sentence repetition and non-word repetition tasks in both Spanish and English as well as an NVWM task. Hierarchical multiple linear regression was used to predict sentence repetition in each language using age, non-word repetition and NVWM. NVWM predicted unique variance in sentence repetition performance in both languages after accounting for chronological age and language-specific phonological memory, as measured by non-word repetition. Domain-general memory resources play a unique role in sentence repetition performance in children with LI. Non-verbal working memory weaknesses may contribute to the poor performance of children with LI on sentence repetition tasks. © 2014 Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.

The Role of Auditory Nonverbal Working Memory in Sentence Repetition for Bilingual Children with Primary Language Impairment

PubMed Central

Ebert, Kerry Danahy

2015-01-01

Background Sentence repetition performance is attracting increasing interest as a valuable clinical marker for Primary (or Specific) Language Impairment (LI) in both monolingual and bilingual populations. Multiple aspects of memory appear to contribute to sentence repetition performance, but nonverbal memory has not yet been considered. Aims The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between a measure of nonverbal auditory working memory (NVWM) and sentence repetition performance in a sample of bilingual children with LI. Methods & Procedures Forty-seven school-aged Spanish-English bilingual children with LI completed sentence repetition and nonword repetition tasks in both Spanish and English as well as an NVWM task. Hierarchical multiple linear regression was used to predict sentence repetition in each language using age, nonword repetition, and NVWM. Outcomes & Results NVWM predicted unique variance in sentence repetition performance in both languages after accounting for chronological age and language-specific phonological memory, as measured by nonword repetition. Conclusions & Implications Domain-general memory resources play a unique role in sentence repetition performance in children with LI. Nonverbal working memory weaknesses may contribute to the poor performance of children with LI on sentence repetition tasks. PMID:24894308

Exploring the Impact of Higher Level Linguistic Representations on Nonword Repetition Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

van der Lely, Heather K. J.; Gallon, Nichola

2006-01-01

Gathercole's (2006) comprehensive and interesting Keynote Article on the nature of the relations between nonword repetition and word learning highlights the complex number of interacting factors that affect this relation through development. In this Commentary we focus on the impact of higher level cognition, particularly linguistic…

Being Forward Not Backward: Lexical Limits to Masked Priming

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Davis, Chris; Kim, Jeesun; Forster, Kenneth I.

2008-01-01

This study investigated whether masked priming is mediated by existing memory representations by determining whether nonwords targets would show repetition priming. To avoid the potential confound that nonword repetition priming would be obscured by a familiarity response bias, the standard lexical decision and naming tasks were modified to make…

A Nonword Repetition Task to Assess Bilingual Children's Phonology

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

dos Santos, Christophe; Ferré, Sandrine

2018-01-01

Children with specific language impairment (SLI) are particularly sensitive to phonological complexity in their language. Their performance drops when there are specific phonological structures or when complexity increases. A nonword repetition (NWR) test, which aims to assess the phonology of bilingual speakers with and without SLI, should…

Bilingual Performance on Nonword Repetition in Spanish and English

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Summers, Connie; Bohman, Thomas M.; Gillam, Ronald B.; Pena, Elizabeth D.; Bedore, Lisa M.

2010-01-01

Background: Nonword repetition (NWR) involves the ability to perceive, store, recall and reproduce phonological sequences. These same abilities play a role in word and morpheme learning. Cross-linguistic studies of performance on NWR tasks, word learning, and morpheme learning yield patterns of increased performance on all three tasks as a…

Non-Word Repetition in Adolescents with Specific Language Impairment (SLI)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ebbels, Susan H.; Dockrell, Julie E.; van der Lely, Heather K. J.

2012-01-01

Background: Non-word repetition (NWR) difficulties are common, but not universal, among children with specific language impairment (SLI). However, older children and adolescents with SLI have rarely been studied. Studies disagree on the relationship between NWR difficulties and difficulties with other areas of language and literacy. There is also…

Associations among Nonword Repetition and Phonemic and Vocabulary Awareness: Implications for Intervention

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tattersall, Patricia J.; Nelson, Nickola Wolf; Tyler, Ann A.

2015-01-01

Prior research has shown possible relations among nonword repetition (NWR), vocabulary, and phonological processing skills in children with and without language impairment. This study was designed to investigate whether relationships would differ for students with primary language impairment (PLI) and typical language (TL) and whether they would…

Short-term phonological memory in preschool children.

PubMed

Rodrigues, Amalia; Befi-Lopes, Debora Maria

2013-01-01

The purpose of this study was to design a short-term memory test, to describe quantitative performance in typically language developing children and to verify the relationship between the non-words repetition and oral phonological measure. The participants included 136 typically language developing children aged from 3 years to 6 years and 11 months old in this study, who were evaluated. The test consisted of 40 non-words of one, two, three, and four syllables. The subjects' repetitions were transcribed and the number of right answers was calculated for each age range. The effect of age was observed in the test, as well as the effect of length, only for disyllabic non-words. The performance in the non-word repetition task showed correlation with the oral phonology measure. The test designed in this research was able to verify the short-term memory in typically language developing children and the results showed correlation between this memory and phonological performance.

Fractionating nonword repetition: The contributions of short-term memory and oromotor praxis are different

PubMed Central

Alcock, Katherine J.; Carey, Daniel; Bergström, Lina; Karmiloff-Smith, Annette; Dick, Frederic

2017-01-01

The ability to reproduce novel words is a sensitive marker of language impairment across a variety of developmental disorders. Nonword repetition tasks are thought to reflect phonological short-term memory skills. Yet, when children hear and then utter a word for the first time, they must transform a novel speech signal into a series of coordinated, precisely timed oral movements. Little is known about how children’s oromotor speed, planning and co-ordination abilities might influence their ability to repeat novel nonwords, beyond the influence of higher-level cognitive and linguistic skills. In the present study, we tested 35 typically developing children between the ages of 5−8 years on measures of nonword repetition, digit span, memory for non-verbal sequences, reading fluency, oromotor praxis, and oral diadochokinesis. We found that oromotor praxis uniquely predicted nonword repetition ability in school-age children, and that the variance it accounted for was additional to that of digit span, memory for non-verbal sequences, articulatory rate (measured by oral diadochokinesis) as well as reading fluency. We conclude that the ability to compute and execute novel sensorimotor transformations affects the production of novel words. These results have important implications for understanding motor/language relations in neurodevelopmental disorders. PMID:28704379

The Influence of Phonotactic Probability on Nonword Repetition and Fast Mapping in 3-Year-Olds With a History of Expressive Language Delay.

PubMed

MacRoy-Higgins, Michelle; Dalton, Kevin Patrick

2015-12-01

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of phonotactic probability on sublexical (phonological) and lexical representations in 3-year-olds who had a history of being late talkers in comparison with their peers with typical language development. Ten 3-year-olds who were late talkers and 10 age-matched typically developing controls completed nonword repetition and fast mapping tasks; stimuli for both experimental procedures differed in phonotactic probability. Both participant groups repeated nonwords containing high phonotactic probability sequences more accurately than nonwords containing low phonotactic probability sequences. Participants with typical language showed an early advantage for fast mapping high phonotactic probability words; children who were late talkers required more exposures to the novel words to show the same advantage for fast mapping high phonotactic probability words. Children who were late talkers showed similar sensitivities to phonotactic probability in nonword repetition and word learning when compared with their peers with no history of language delay. However, word learning in children who were late talkers appeared to be slower when compared with their peers.

Encoding: the keystone to efficient functioning of verbal short-term memory.

PubMed

Barry, Johanna G; Sabisch, Beate; Friederici, Angela D; Brauer, Jens

2011-11-01

Verbal short-term memory (VSTM) is thought to play a critical role in language learning. It is indexed by the nonword repetition task where listeners are asked to repeat meaningless words like 'blonterstaping'. The present study investigated the effect on nonword repetition performance of differences in efficiency of functioning of some part of the neural architecture mediating VSTM. Hypotheses were stated within Baddeley and Hitch's (1974) multicomponent model of VSTM, with respect to regions of the brain known to be active during tasks tapping into VSTM. We were specifically interested in activations associated with the posterior planum temporale (Spt) which emerge during rehearsal since this region is hypothesized to be central to VTSM (Buchsbaum, Olsen, Koch, & Berman, 2005a). Participants performed a delayed reaction time task in the scanner which explicitly mimicked the three main stages of information-processing involved in VSTM (encoding, rehearsal, recall (here recognition)). The data for each stage were then convolved with scores from a separately measured nonword repetition task. Rather than observing a pattern of individual differences located to specific regions specialized for supporting VSTM, a dissociation in direction of correlation in overlapping regions of the brain was observed during encoding and recognition. Larger hemodynamic responses during encoding were associated with better nonword repetition, and vice versa during recognition. There was little evidence for a network of activations specialized for VSTM. Instead, the main correlations were observed in regions also known to be involved in long-term memory. It seems that individuals who are better at nonword repetition and hence at language learning, activate these regions more efficiently than poorer nonword-repeaters early after stimulus input. These observations are discussed with respect to various models proposed for explaining the phenomenon of VSTM. Crown Copyright © 2011. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Exploring the Correlates of Impaired Non-Word Repetition in Down Syndrome

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cairns, Peter; Jarrold, Christopher

2005-01-01

Non-word repetition, in which participants hear and repeat unfamiliar verbal stimuli, is thought to provide a particularly sensitive measure of verbal short-term memory capacity. However, performance on this task can also be constrained by hearing and speech production skills, and by an individuals' linguistic knowledge. This study examined real…

Nonword Repetition, Phonological Storage, and Multiple Determinations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gupta, Prahlad

2006-01-01

The proposals that (a) nonword repetition and word learning both rely on phonological storage and (b) both are multiply determined are two of the major foci of Gathercole's (2006) Keynote Article, which marshals considerable evidence in support of each. In my view, the importance of these proposals cannot be overstated: these two notions go to the…

Beyond Words: Phonological Short-Term Memory and Syntactic Impairment in Specific Language Impairment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bishop, Dorothy V. M.

2006-01-01

The assessment of nonword repetition in children goes back at least to 1974, when the Goldman-Fristoe-Woodcock Auditory Skills Battery was published, including a subtest (Sound Mimicry) assessing nonword repetition (Goldman, Fristoe, & Woodcock, 1974). Nevertheless, it was not until 20 years later, when Gathercole and Baddeley (1990) reported a…

Effects of Vocabulary and Phonotactic Probability on 2-Year-Olds' Nonword Repetition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Verhagen, Josje; de Bree, Elise; Mulder, Hanna; Leseman, Paul

2017-01-01

This study investigates the relationship between nonword repetition (NWR) and vocabulary in 2-year-olds. Questions addressed are whether (1) NWR and vocabulary are associated, (2) phonotactic probability affects NWR, and (3) there is an interaction effect between phonotactic probability and vocabulary on NWR performance. The general aim of the…

Effects of Mora Deletion, Nonword Repetition, Rapid Naming, and Visual Search Performance on Beginning Reading in Japanese

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kobayashi, Maya Shiho; Haynes, Charles W.; Macaruso, Paul; Hook, Pamela E.; Kato, Junko

2005-01-01

This study examined the extent to which mora deletion (phonological analysis), nonword repetition (phonological memory), rapid automatized naming (RAN), and visual search abilities predict reading in Japanese kindergartners and first graders. Analogous abilities have been identified as important predictors of reading skills in alphabetic languages…

Consonant Age-of-Acquisition Effects in Nonword Repetition Are Not Articulatory in Nature

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moore, Michelle W.; Fiez, Julie A.; Tompkins, Connie A.

2017-01-01

Purpose: Most research examining long-term-memory effects on nonword repetition (NWR) has focused on lexical-level variables. Phoneme-level variables have received little attention, although there are reasons to expect significant sublexical effects in NWR. To further understand the underlying processes of NWR, this study examined effects of…

Why Computational Models Are Better than Verbal Theories: The Case of Nonword Repetition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jones, Gary; Gobet, Fernand; Freudenthal, Daniel; Watson, Sarah E.; Pine, Julian M.

2014-01-01

Tests of nonword repetition (NWR) have often been used to examine children's phonological knowledge and word learning abilities. However, theories of NWR primarily explain performance either in terms of phonological working memory or long-term knowledge, with little consideration of how these processes interact. One theoretical account that…

Nonword Repetition and Vocabulary Use in Toddlers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stokes, Stephanie F.; Moran, Catherine; George, Anjali

2013-01-01

Purpose: There is general consensus that the ability to repeat nonsense words is related to vocabulary size in young children, but there is considerable debate about the nature of the relationship and the mechanisms that underlie it. Research with adults has proposed a shared neural substrate for nonword repetition (NWR) and language production,…

Nonword repetition in lexical decision: support for two opposing processes.

PubMed

Wagenmakers, Eric-Jan; Zeelenberg, René; Steyvers, Mark; Shiffrin, Richard; Raaijmakers, Jeroen

2004-10-01

We tested and confirmed the hypothesis that the prior presentation of nonwords in lexical decision is the net result of two opposing processes: (1) a relatively fast inhibitory process based on global familiarity; and (2) a relatively slow facilitatory process based on the retrieval of specific episodic information. In three studies, we manipulated speed-stress to influence the balance between the two processes. Experiment 1 showed item-specific improvement for repeated nonwords in a standard "respond-when-ready" lexical decision task. Experiment 2 used a 400-ms deadline procedure and showed performance for nonwords to be unaffected by up to four prior presentations. In Experiment 3 we used a signal-to-respond procedure with variable time intervals and found negative repetition priming for repeated nonwords. These results can be accounted for by dual-process models of lexical decision.

Encoding: The Keystone to Efficient Functioning of Verbal Short-Term Memory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barry, Johanna G.; Sabisch, Beate; Friederici, Angela D.; Brauer, Jens

2011-01-01

Verbal short-term memory (VSTM) is thought to play a critical role in language learning. It is indexed by the nonword repetition task where listeners are asked to repeat meaningless words like "blonterstaping". The present study investigated the effect on nonword repetition performance of differences in efficiency of functioning of some part of…

Modulation of Brain Activity during Phonological Familiarization

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Majerus, S.; Van der Linden, M.; Collette, F.; Laureys, S.; Poncelet, M.; Degueldre, C.; Delfiore, G.; Luxen, A.; Salmon, E.

2005-01-01

We measured brain activity in 12 adults for the repetition of auditorily presented words and nonwords, before and after repeated exposure to their phonological form. The nonword phoneme combinations were either of high (HF) or low (LF) phonotactic frequency. After familiarization, we observed, for both word and nonword conditions, decreased…

The Role of Phonological Working Memory and Environmental Factors in Lexical Development in Italian-Speaking Late Talkers: A One-Year Follow-Up Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marini, Andrea; Ruffino, Milena; Sali, Maria Enrica; Molteni, Massimo

2017-01-01

Purpose: This follow-up study assessed (a) the influence of phonological working memory (pWM), home literacy environment, and a family history of linguistic impairments in late talkers (LTs); (b) the diagnostic accuracy of a task of nonword repetition (NWR) in identifying LTs; and (c) the persistence of lexical weaknesses after 10 months. Method:…

English Language Learners' Nonword Repetition Performance: The Influence of Age, L2 Vocabulary Size, Length of L2 Exposure, and L1 Phonology.

PubMed

Duncan, Tamara Sorenson; Paradis, Johanne

2016-02-01

This study examined individual differences in English language learners' (ELLs) nonword repetition (NWR) accuracy, focusing on the effects of age, English vocabulary size, length of exposure to English, and first-language (L1) phonology. Participants were 75 typically developing ELLs (mean age 5;8 [years;months]) whose exposure to English began on average at age 4;4. Children spoke either a Chinese language or South Asian language as an L1 and were given English standardized tests for NWR and receptive vocabulary. Although the majority of ELLs scored within or above the monolingual normal range (71%), 29% scored below. Mixed logistic regression modeling revealed that a larger English vocabulary, longer English exposure, South Asian L1, and older age all had significant and positive effects on ELLs' NWR accuracy. Error analyses revealed the following L1 effect: onset consonants were produced more accurately than codas overall, but this effect was stronger for the Chinese group whose L1s have a more limited coda inventory compared with English. ELLs' NWR performance is influenced by a number of factors. Consideration of these factors is important in deciding whether monolingual norm referencing is appropriate for ELL children.

A Quasi-Universal Nonword Repetition Task as a Diagnostic Tool for Bilingual Children Learning Dutch as a Second Language.

PubMed

Boerma, Tessel; Chiat, Shula; Leseman, Paul; Timmermeister, Mona; Wijnen, Frank; Blom, Elma

2015-12-01

This study evaluated a newly developed quasi-universal nonword repetition task (Q-U NWRT) as a diagnostic tool for bilingual children with language impairment (LI) who have Dutch as a 2nd language. The Q-U NWRT was designed to be minimally influenced by knowledge of 1 specific language in contrast to a language-specific NWRT with which it was compared. One hundred twenty monolingual and bilingual children with and without LI participated (30 per group). A mixed-design analysis of variance was used to investigate the effects of LI and bilingualism on the NWRTs. Receiver operating characteristic analyses were conducted to evaluate the instruments' diagnostic value. Large negative effects of LI were found on both NWRTs, whereas negative effects of bilingualism only occurred on the language-specific NWRT. Both instruments had high clinical accuracy in the monolingual group, but only the Q-U NWRT had high clinical accuracy in the bilingual group. This study indicates that the Q-U NWRT is a promising diagnostic tool to help identify LI in bilingual children learning Dutch as a 2nd language. The instrument was clinically accurate in both a monolingual and bilingual group of children and seems better able to disentangle LI from language disadvantage than more language-specific measures.

Non-Word Repetition in Adolescents with Specific Language Impairment and Autism Plus Language Impairments: A Qualitative Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Riches, N. G.; Loucas, T.; Baird, G.; Charman, T.; Simonoff, E.

2011-01-01

Non-word repetition (NWR) was investigated in adolescents with typical development, Specific Language Impairment (SLI) and Autism Plus language Impairment (ALI) (n = 17, 13, 16, and mean age 14;4, 15;4, 14;8 respectively). The study evaluated the hypothesis that poor NWR performance in both groups indicates an overlapping language phenotype…

Nonword Repetition: The Relative Contributions of Phonological Short-Term Memory and Phonological Representations in Children with Language and Reading Impairment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rispens, Judith; Baker, Anne

2012-01-01

Purpose: This study investigates the relative contributions of phonological short-term memory and phonological representations to nonword repetition (NWR). This was evaluated in children with specific language impairment (SLI) and/or reading impairment (RI); it was also studied from a developmental perspective by comparing 2 groups of typically…

Nonword Repetition and Vocabulary Knowledge as Predictors of Children's Phonological and Semantic Word Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Adlof, Suzanne M.; Patten, Hannah

2017-01-01

Purpose: This study examined the unique and shared variance that nonword repetition and vocabulary knowledge contribute to children's ability to learn new words. Multiple measures of word learning were used to assess recall and recognition of phonological and semantic information. Method: Fifty children, with a mean age of 8 years (range 5-12…

Oral-Diadochokinetic Rates for Hebrew-Speaking Healthy Ageing Population: Non-Word versus Real-Word Repetition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ben-David, Boaz M.; Icht, Michal

2017-01-01

Background: Oral-diadochokinesis (oral-DDK) tasks are extensively used in the evaluation of motor speech abilities. Currently, validated normative data for older adults (aged 65 years and older) are missing in Hebrew. The effect of task stimuli (non-word versus real-word repetition) is also non-clear in the population of older adult Hebrew…

Investigating the Relationship between Nonword Repetition Performance and Syllabic Structure in Typical and Atypical Language Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tamburelli, Marco; Jones, Gary

2013-01-01

Purpose: In this study, the authors examined the role of syllabic structure in nonword repetition performance in typically developing (TD) children and children with specific language impairment (SLI). Method: Eighteen children with SLI (5;7--6;7 [years;months]) and 18 TD children matched for chronological age were tested on their ability to…

Word Recognition and Nonword Repetition in Children with Language Disorders: The Effects of Neighborhood Density, Lexical Frequency, and Phonotactic Probability

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rispens, Judith; Baker, Anne; Duinmeijer, Iris

2015-01-01

Purpose: The effects of neighborhood density (ND) and lexical frequency on word recognition and the effects of phonotactic probability (PP) on nonword repetition (NWR) were examined to gain insight into processing at the lexical and sublexical levels in typically developing (TD) children and children with developmental language problems. Method:…

Oral-diadochokinetic rates for Hebrew-speaking healthy ageing population: non-word versus real-word repetition.

PubMed

Ben-David, Boaz M; Icht, Michal

2017-05-01

Oral-diadochokinesis (oral-DDK) tasks are extensively used in the evaluation of motor speech abilities. Currently, validated normative data for older adults (aged 65 years and older) are missing in Hebrew. The effect of task stimuli (non-word versus real-word repetition) is also non-clear in the population of older adult Hebrew speakers. (1) To establish a norm for oral-DDK rate for older adult (aged 65 years and older) Hebrew speakers, and to investigate the possible effect of age and gender on performance rate; and (2) to examine the effects of stimuli (non-word versus real word) on oral-DDK rates. In experiment 1, 88 healthy older Hebrew speakers (60-95 years, 48 females and 40 males) were audio-recorded while performing an oral-DDK task (repetition of /pataka/), and repetition rates (syllables/s) were coded. In experiment 2, the effect of real-word repetition was evaluated. Sixty-eight older Hebrew speakers (aged 66-95 years, 43 females and 25 males) were asked to repeat 'pataka' (non-word) and 'bodeket' (Hebrew real word). Experiment 1: Oral-DDK performance for older adult Hebrew speakers was 5.07 syllables/s (SD = 1.16 syllables/s), across age groups and gender. Comparison of this data with Hebrew norms for younger adults (and equivalent data in English) shows the following gradient of oral-DDK rates: ages 15-45 > 65-74 > 75-86 years. Gender was not a significant factor in our data. Experiment 2: Repetition of real words was faster than that of non-words, by 13.5%. The paper provides normative values for oral-DDK rates for older Hebrew speakers. The data show the large impact of ageing on oro-motor functions. The analysis further indicates that speech and language pathologists should consider separate norms for clients of 65-74 years and those of 75-86 years. Hebrew rates were found to be different from English norms for the oldest group, shedding light on the impact of language on these norms. Finally, the data support using a dual-protocol (real- and non-word repetition) with older adults to improve differential diagnosis of normal and pathological ageing in this task. © 2016 Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.

Interactive effects of age-of-acquisition and repetition priming in the lexical decision task. A multiple-loci account.

PubMed

Spataro, Pietro; Longobardi, Emiddia; Saraulli, Daniele; Rossi-Arnaud, Clelia

2013-01-01

The analysis of the interaction between repetition priming and age of acquisition may be used to shed further light on the question of which stages of elaboration are affected by this psycholinguistic variable. In the present study we applied this method in the context of two versions of a lexical decision task that differed in the type of non-words employed at test. When the non-words were illegal and unpronounceable, repetition priming was primarily based on the analysis of orthographic information, while phonological processes were additionally recruited only when using legal pronounceable non-words. The results showed a significant interaction between repetition priming and age of acquisition in both conditions, with priming being greater for late- than for early-acquired words. These findings support a multiple-loci account, indicating that age of acquisition influences implicit memory by facilitating the retrieval of both the orthographic and the phonological representations of studied words.

The Impact of Feedback Frequency on Performance in a Novel Speech Motor Learning Task.

PubMed

Lowe, Mara Steinberg; Buchwald, Adam

2017-06-22

This study investigated whether whole nonword accuracy, phoneme accuracy, and acoustic duration measures were influenced by the amount of feedback speakers without impairment received during a novel speech motor learning task. Thirty-two native English speakers completed a nonword production task across 3 time points: practice, short-term retention, and long-term retention. During practice, participants received knowledge of results feedback according to a randomly assigned schedule (100%, 50%, 20%, or 0%). Changes in nonword accuracy, phoneme accuracy, nonword duration, and initial-cluster duration were compared among feedback groups, sessions, and stimulus properties. All participants improved phoneme and whole nonword accuracy at short-term and long-term retention time points. Participants also refined productions of nonwords, as indicated by a decrease in nonword duration across sessions. The 50% group exhibited the largest reduction in duration between practice and long-term retention for nonwords with native and nonnative clusters. All speakers, regardless of feedback schedule, learned new speech motor behaviors quickly with a high degree of accuracy and refined their speech motor skills for perceptually accurate productions. Acoustic measurements may capture more subtle, subperceptual changes that may occur during speech motor learning. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.5116324.

Nonword Repetition and Language Development in 4-Year-Old Children with and without a History of Early Language Delay

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thal, Donna J.; Miller, Scott; Carlson, Janna; Vega, Martha Moreno

2005-01-01

Purpose: This study examined the usefulness of the Nonword Repetition Test (NRT; C. Dollaghan & T. F. Campbell, 1998) with 4-year-old children and the relationship among the NRT, language, and other aspects of mental processing. Method: The NRT was administered to 64 children at 4 years of age; 44 had a history of typical language development…

A Quasi-Universal Nonword Repetition Task as a Diagnostic Tool for Bilingual Children Learning Dutch as a Second Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boerma, Tessel; Chiat, Shula; Leseman, Paul; Timmermeister, Mona; Wijnen, Frank; Blom, Elma

2015-01-01

Purpose: This study evaluated a newly developed quasi-universal nonword repetition task (Q-U NWRT) as a diagnostic tool for bilingual children with language impairment (LI) who have Dutch as a 2nd language. The Q-U NWRT was designed to be minimally influenced by knowledge of 1 specific language in contrast to a language-specific NWRT with which it…

Predictors of Reading in Urdu: Does Deep Orthography Have an Impact?

PubMed Central

Farukh, Ammara; Vulchanova, Mila

2014-01-01

The aim of this study was to establish the extent to which rapid automatized naming (RAN) and non-word repetition (NWR) tasks predict reading fluency and reading accuracy in Urdu. One hundred sixty (8–9 years) children attending two types of schools (Urdu and English medium schools) were distributed into two groups, a control and a reading disability group on the basis of teacher’s report. The results confirmed the role of RAN in predicting reading fluency in both groups. The role of NWR as a predictor of accuracy was also confirmed, although the strength of the relationship was modulated by RAN in the reading disability group. There are no tests available to identify children with reading problems in Urdu. Our study supports the validity of NWR and RAN tasks for the purposes of screening for reading deficits. The performance results also confirm the original grouping based on teacher reports. The study further highlights the importance of medium of instruction and increased oral language input in learning to read. © 2014 The Authors. Dyslexia published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Key Messages Reliability of teacher reports in screening for reading difficulties in the classroom. Appropriateness of non-word repetition and rapid automatized naming tasks for establishing reading problems in Urdu. School type and exposure to instruction influences reading skills. PMID:24664499

[Effect of divided attention on explicit and implicit aspects of recall].

PubMed

Wippich, W; Schmitt, R; Mecklenbräuker, S

1989-01-01

If subjects have to form word images before spelling a word from the image, results of a repetition of the spelling test reveal a reliable priming effect: Old words can be spelled faster than comparable control words, reflecting a form of implicit memory. We investigated whether this kind of repetition priming remains stable under conditions of divided attention in the study phase. The subjects had to spell meaningful words, meaningless non-words, and non-words that were meaningful with a backward spelling direction (troper, for example). In the testing stage, recognition judgments as a form of explicit memory were required, too. Divided attention in the study phase had a negative effect on explicit memory, as revealed by performance on the recognition task, but had little effect on implicit memory, as revealed by performance on the repetition of the spelling test. A further dissociation between implicit and explicit memory showed up as meaningful words were recognized much better than non-words, whereas implicit memory was uninfluenced by the meaningfulness variable. The disadvantage of backward spellings was not reduced with non-words (like troper) spelled backwards. Finally, we analyzed the relations between spelling times and recognition judgments and found a pattern of dependency for non-words only. Generally, the results are discussed within processing-oriented approaches to implicit memory with a special emphasis on controversial findings concerning the role of attention in different expressions of memory.

Nonword repetition ability of children who do and do not stutter and covert repair hypothesis.

PubMed

Bakhtiar, Mehdi; Abad, Ali Dehqan Ahmad; Panahi, Mohammad Sadegh Seif

2007-08-01

Stuttering has a life span incidence and it significantly impacts academic, social, emotional and vocational achievements of patients who stutter. The purpose of the present study was to examine phonological encoding in young children who stutter (CWS) during a non word repetition task and to test the covert repair hypothesis (CRH) and phonological skills in Persian native children. The study was conducted among 12 CWS and 12 children who do not stutter (CWNS) between the ages of 5.1 and 7.10 at the rehabilitation clinics in Tehran. A list of 40 bisyllabic and trisyllabic nonwords was used in a nonword repetition task to collect information about the following dependent variables: (a) reaction times (RTs), (b) the number of phonological errors (PEs) and (c) nonword length. An independent sample T-test was performed to compare means of PEs and RTs between the two groups and a paired t-test for analysis of nonword length impacts. Results indicated that the CWS had a slightly poor performance than CWNS but there was no significant difference between the groups. Also, the differences between bisyllabic and trisyllabic nonwords were significant for phonological errors but not for reaction times. In general, it is concluded that CWS might not have a gross problem in phonological retrieval of the novel phonological context even with increase in syllable length. Also, some predictions of CRH were not supported by this research. However, further research into this possibility may shed light on the emergence and characteristics of childhood stuttering.

When Less is More: Feedback, Priming, and the Pseudoword Superiority Effect

PubMed Central

Massol, Stéphanie; Midgley, Katherine J.; Holcomb, Phillip J.; Grainger, Jonathan

2011-01-01

The present study combined masked priming with electrophysiological recordings to investigate orthographic priming effects with nonword targets. Targets were pronounceable nonwords (e.g., STRENG) or consonant strings (e.g., STRBNG), that both differed from a real word by a single letter substitution (STRONG). Targets were preceded by related primes that could be the same as the target (e.g., streng – STRENG, strbng-STRBNG) or the real word neighbor of the target (e.g., strong – STRENG, strong-STRBNG). Independently of priming, pronounceable nonwords were associated with larger negativities than consonant strings, starting at 290 ms post-target onset. Overall, priming effects were stronger and more long-lasting with pronounceable nonwords than consonant strings. However, consonant string targets showed an early effect of word neighbor priming in the absence of an effect of repetition priming, whereas pronounceable nonwords showed both repetition and word neighbor priming effects in the same time window. This pattern of priming effects is taken as evidence for feedback from whole-word orthographic representations activated by the prime stimulus that influences bottom-up processing of prelexical representations during target processing. PMID:21354110

Diagnostic accuracy of repetition tasks for the identification of specific language impairment (SLI) in bilingual children: evidence from Russian and Hebrew.

PubMed

Armon-Lotem, Sharon; Meir, Natalia

2016-11-01

Previous research demonstrates that repetition tasks are valuable tools for diagnosing specific language impairment (SLI) in monolingual children in English and a variety of other languages, with non-word repetition (NWR) and sentence repetition (SRep) yielding high levels of sensitivity and specificity. Yet, only a few studies have addressed the diagnostic accuracy of repetition tasks in bilingual children, and most available research focuses on English-Spanish sequential bilinguals. To evaluate the efficacy of three repetition tasks (forward digit span (FWD), NWR and SRep) in order to distinguish mono- and bilingual children with and without SLI in Russian and Hebrew. A total of 230 mono- and bilingual children aged 5;5-6;8 participated in the study: 144 bilingual Russian-Hebrew-speaking children (27 with SLI); and 52 monolingual Hebrew-speaking children (14 with SLI) and 34 monolingual Russian-speaking children (14 with SLI). Parallel repetition tasks were designed in both Russian and Hebrew. Bilingual children were tested in both languages. The findings confirmed that NWR and SRep are valuable tools in distinguishing monolingual children with and without SLI in Russian and Hebrew, while the results for FWD were mixed. Yet, testing of bilingual children with the same tools using monolingual cut-off points resulted in inadequate diagnostic accuracy. We demonstrate, however, that the use of bilingual cut-off points yielded acceptable levels of diagnostic accuracy. The combination of SRep tasks in L1/Russian and L2/Hebrew yielded the highest overall accuracy (i.e., 94%), but even SRep alone in L2/Hebrew showed excellent levels of sensitivity (i.e., 100%) and specificity (i.e., 89%), reaching 91% of total diagnostic accuracy. The results are very promising for identifying SLI in bilingual children and for showing that testing in the majority language with bilingual cut-off points can provide an accurate classification. © 2016 Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.

The Speech Intelligibility Index and the pure-tone average as predictors of lexical ability in children fit with hearing AIDS.

PubMed

Stiles, Derek J; Bentler, Ruth A; McGregor, Karla K

2012-06-01

To determine whether a clinically obtainable measure of audibility, the aided Speech Intelligibility Index (SII; American National Standards Institute, 2007), is more sensitive than the pure-tone average (PTA) at predicting the lexical abilities of children who wear hearing aids (CHA). School-age CHA and age-matched children with normal hearing (CNH) repeated words and nonwords, learned novel words, and completed a standardized receptive vocabulary test. Analyses of covariance allowed comparison of the 2 groups. For CHA, regression analyses determined whether SII held predictive value over and beyond PTA. CHA demonstrated poorer performance than CNH on tests of word and nonword repetition and receptive vocabulary. Groups did not differ on word learning. Aided SII was a stronger predictor of word and nonword repetition and receptive vocabulary than PTA. After accounting for PTA, aided SII remained a significant predictor of nonword repetition and receptive vocabulary. Despite wearing hearing aids, CHA performed more poorly on 3 of 4 lexical measures. Individual differences among CHA were predicted by aided SII. Unlike PTA, aided SII incorporates hearing aid amplification characteristics and speech-frequency weightings and may provide a more valid estimate of the child's access to and ability to learn from auditory input in real-world environments.

Phonological Working Memory for Words and Nonwords in Cerebral Cortex

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Perrachione, Tyler K.; Ghosh, Satrajit S.; Ostrovskaya, Irina; Gabrieli, John D. E.; Kovelman, Ioulia

2017-01-01

Purpose: The primary purpose of this study was to identify the brain bases of phonological working memory (the short-term maintenance of speech sounds) using behavioral tasks analogous to clinically sensitive assessments of nonword repetition. The secondary purpose of the study was to identify how individual differences in brain activation were…

The Roles of Phonological Short-Term Memory and Working Memory in L2 Grammar and Vocabulary Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martin, Katherine I.; Ellis, Nick C.

2012-01-01

This study analyzed phonological short-term memory (PSTM) and working memory (WM) and their relationship with vocabulary and grammar learning in an artificial foreign language. Nonword repetition, nonword recognition, and listening span were used as memory measures. Participants learned the singular forms of vocabulary for an artificial foreign…

Electrophysiology of Perception and Processing of Phonological Information as Indices of Toddlers' Language Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Harwood, Vanessa; Preston, Jonathan; Grela, Bernard; Roy, Dooti; Harold, Olivia; Turcios, Jacqueline; Andrada, Kiyomi; Landi, Nicole

2017-01-01

Purpose: The toddler years are a critical period for language development and growth. We investigated how event-related potentials (ERPs) to repeated and novel nonwords are associated with clinical assessments of language in young children. In addition, nonword repetition (NWR) was used to measure phonological working memory to determine the…

Real-Word Repetition as a Predictor of Grammatical Competence in Italian Children with Typical Language Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dispaldro, Marco; Benelli, Beatrice; Marcolini, Stefania; Stella, Giacomo

2009-01-01

Background: Non-word repetition in children is a skill related to, but separable from grammatical ability. Lexical skill may bridge the gap between these two abilities. Aims: The main aim was to determine whether real-word-repetition tasks could be better as predictors of grammatical ability than non-word-repetition tasks in children with typical…

Meaningful Words and Non-Words Repetitive Articulatory Rate (Oral Diadochokinesis) in Persian Speaking Children.

PubMed

Zamani, Peyman; Rezai, Hossein; Garmatani, Neda Tahmasebi

2017-08-01

Repetitive articulatory rate or Oral Diadochokinesis (oral-DDK) shows a guideline for appraisal and diagnosis of subjects with oral-motor disorder. Traditionally, meaningless words repetition has been utilized in this task and preschool children have challenges with them. Therefore, we aimed to determine some meaningful words in order to test oral-DDK in Persian speaking preschool children. Participants were 142 normally developing children, (age range 4-6 years), who were asked to produce /motæka, golabi/ as two meaningful Persian words and /pa-ta-ka/ as non-word in conventional oral-DDK task. We compared the time taken for 10-times fast repetitions of two meaningful Persian words and the tri-syllabic nonsense word /pa-ta-ka/. Praat software was used to calculate the average time that subjects took to produce the target items. In 4-5 year old children, [Formula: see text] of time taken for 10-times repetitions of /pa-ta-ka, motæka, golabi/ were [Formula: see text], and [Formula: see text] seconds respectively, and in 5-6 year old children were [Formula: see text], and [Formula: see text] seconds respectively. Findings showed that the main effect of type of words on oral diadochokinesis was significant ([Formula: see text]). Children repeated meaningful words /motæka, golabi/ faster than the non-word /pa-ta-ka/. Sex and age factors had no effect on time taken for repetition of oral-DDK test. It is suggested that Speech Therapists can use meaningful words to facilitate oral-DDK test for children.

An Extension of a Parallel-Distributed Processing Framework of Reading Aloud in Japanese: Human Nonword Reading Accuracy Does Not Require a Sequential Mechanism

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ikeda, Kenji; Ueno, Taiji; Ito, Yuichi; Kitagami, Shinji; Kawaguchi, Jun

2017-01-01

Humans can pronounce a nonword (e.g., rint). Some researchers have interpreted this behavior as requiring a sequential mechanism by which a grapheme-phoneme correspondence rule is applied to each grapheme in turn. However, several parallel-distributed processing (PDP) models in English have simulated human nonword reading accuracy without a…

Language and Motor Abilities of Preschool Children Who Stutter: Evidence from Behavioral and Kinematic Indices of Nonword Repetition Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smith, Anne; Goffman, Lisa; Sasisekaran, Jayanthi; Weber-Fox, Christine

2012-01-01

Stuttering is a disorder of speech production that typically arises in the preschool years, and many accounts of its onset and development implicate language and motor processes as critical underlying factors. There have, however, been very few studies of speech motor control processes in preschool children who stutter. Hearing novel nonwords and…

Meaningful Words and Non-Words Repetitive Articulatory Rate (Oral Diadochokinesis) in Persian Speaking Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zamani, Peyman; Rezai, Hossein; Garmatani, Neda Tahmasebi

2017-01-01

Repetitive articulatory rate or Oral Diadochokinesis (oral-DDK) shows a guideline for appraisal and diagnosis of subjects with oral-motor disorder. Traditionally, meaningless words repetition has been utilized in this task and preschool children have challenges with them. Therefore, we aimed to determine some meaningful words in order to test…

Long-term repetition priming with symmetrical polygons and words.

PubMed

Kersteen-Tucker, Z

1991-01-01

In two different tasks, subjects were asked to make lexical decisions (word or nonword) and symmetry judgments (symmetrical or nonsymmetrical) about two-dimensional polygons. In both tasks, every stimulus was repeated at one of four lags (0, 1, 4, or 8 items interposed between the first and second stimulus presentations). This paradigm, known as repetition priming, revealed comparable short-term priming (Lag 0) and long-term priming (Lags 1, 4, and 8) both for symmetrical polygons and for words. A shorter term component (Lags 0 and 1) of priming was observed for nonwords, and only very short-term priming (Lag 0) was observed for nonsymmetrical polygons. These results indicate that response facilitation accruing from repeated exposure can be observed for stimuli that have no preexisting memory representations and suggest that perceptual factors contribute to repetition-priming effects.

Impact of Diglossia on Word and Non-word Repetition among Language Impaired and Typically Developing Arabic Native Speaking Children

PubMed Central

Saiegh-Haddad, Elinor; Ghawi-Dakwar, Ola

2017-01-01

The study tested the impact of the phonological and lexical distance between a dialect of Palestinian Arabic spoken in the north of Israel (SpA) and Modern Standard Arabic (StA or MSA) on word and non-word repetition in children with specific language impairment (SLI) and in typically developing (TD) age-matched controls. Fifty kindergarten children (25 SLI, 25 TD; mean age 5;5) and fifty first grade children (25 SLI, 25 TD; mean age 6:11) were tested with a repetition task for 1–4 syllable long real words and pseudo words; Items varied systematically in whether each encoded a novel StA phoneme or not, namely a phoneme that is only used in StA but not in the spoken dialect targeted. Real words also varied in whether they were lexically novel, meaning whether the word is used only in StA, but not in SpA. SLI children were found to significantly underperform TD children on all repetition tasks indicating a general phonological memory deficit. More interesting for the current investigation is the observed strong and consistent effect of phonological novelty on word and non-word repetition in SLI and TD children, with a stronger effect observed in SLI. In contrast with phonological novelty, the effect of lexical novelty on word repetition was limited and it did not interact with group. The results are argued to reflect the role of linguistic distance in phonological memory for novel linguistic units in Arabic SLI and, hence, to support a specific Linguistic Distance Hypothesis of SLI in a diglossic setting. The implications of the findings for assessment, diagnosis and intervention with Arabic speaking children with SLI are discussed. PMID:29213248

Impact of Diglossia on Word and Non-word Repetition among Language Impaired and Typically Developing Arabic Native Speaking Children.

PubMed

Saiegh-Haddad, Elinor; Ghawi-Dakwar, Ola

2017-01-01

The study tested the impact of the phonological and lexical distance between a dialect of Palestinian Arabic spoken in the north of Israel (SpA) and Modern Standard Arabic (StA or MSA) on word and non-word repetition in children with specific language impairment (SLI) and in typically developing (TD) age-matched controls. Fifty kindergarten children (25 SLI, 25 TD; mean age 5;5) and fifty first grade children (25 SLI, 25 TD; mean age 6:11) were tested with a repetition task for 1-4 syllable long real words and pseudo words; Items varied systematically in whether each encoded a novel StA phoneme or not, namely a phoneme that is only used in StA but not in the spoken dialect targeted. Real words also varied in whether they were lexically novel, meaning whether the word is used only in StA, but not in SpA. SLI children were found to significantly underperform TD children on all repetition tasks indicating a general phonological memory deficit. More interesting for the current investigation is the observed strong and consistent effect of phonological novelty on word and non-word repetition in SLI and TD children, with a stronger effect observed in SLI. In contrast with phonological novelty, the effect of lexical novelty on word repetition was limited and it did not interact with group. The results are argued to reflect the role of linguistic distance in phonological memory for novel linguistic units in Arabic SLI and, hence, to support a specific Linguistic Distance Hypothesis of SLI in a diglossic setting. The implications of the findings for assessment, diagnosis and intervention with Arabic speaking children with SLI are discussed.

Speech Perception and Phonological Short-Term Memory Capacity in Language Impairment: Preliminary Evidence from Adolescents with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) and Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Loucas, Tom; Riches, Nick Greatorex; Charman, Tony; Pickles, Andrew; Simonoff, Emily; Chandler, Susie; Baird, Gillian

2010-01-01

Background: The cognitive bases of language impairment in specific language impairment (SLI) and autism spectrum disorders (ASD) were investigated in a novel non-word comparison task which manipulated phonological short-term memory (PSTM) and speech perception, both implicated in poor non-word repetition. Aims: This study aimed to investigate the…

Unintended Imitation in Nonword Repetition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kappes, Juliane; Baumgaertner, Annette; Peschke, Claudia; Ziegler, Wolfram

2009-01-01

Verbal repetition is conventionally considered to require motor-reproduction of only the phonologically relevant content of a perceived linguistic stimulus, while imitation of incidental acoustic properties of the stimulus is not an explicit part of this task. Exemplar-based theories of speech processing, however, would predict that imitation…

Being forward not backward: lexical limits to masked priming.

PubMed

Davis, Chris; Kim, Jeesun; Forster, Kenneth I

2008-05-01

This study investigated whether masked priming is mediated by existing memory representations by determining whether nonwords targets would show repetition priming. To avoid the potential confound that nonword repetition priming would be obscured by a familiarity response bias, the standard lexical decision and naming tasks were modified to make targets unfamiliar. Participants were required to read a target string from right to left (i.e., "ECAF" should be read as "FACE") and then make a response. To examine if priming was based on lexical representations, repetition primes consisted of words when read forwards or backwards (e.g., "face", "ecaf") and nonwords (e.g., "pame", "emap"). Forward and backward primes were used to test if task instruction affected prime encoding. The lexical decision and naming tasks showed the same pattern of results: priming only occurred for forward primes with word targets (e.g., "face-ECAF"). Additional experiments to test if response priming affected the LDT indicated that the lexical status of the prime per se did not affect target responses. These results showed that the encoding of masked primes was unaffected by the novel task instruction and support the view that masked priming is due to the automatic triggering of pre-established computational processes based on stored information.

Identification of Clinical Markers of Specific Language Impairment in Adults

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Poll, Gerard H.; Betz, Stacy K.; Miller, Carol A.

2010-01-01

Purpose: To investigate the usefulness of 3 tasks known to be effective diagnostic clinical markers of specific language impairment (SLI) in children: (a) nonword repetition, (b) sentence repetition, and (c) grammaticality judgments of finiteness marking. Method: Two groups of young adults, 13 with SLI and 18 with typical language, completed 3…

Phonological memory and vocabulary learning in children with focal lesions

PubMed Central

Gupta, Prahlad; MacWhinney, Brian; Feldman, Heidi M.; Sacco, Kelley

2014-01-01

Eleven children with early focal lesions were compared with 70 age-matched controls to assess their performance in repeating non-words, in learning new words, and in immediate serial recall, a triad of abilities that are believed to share a dependence on serial ordering mechanisms (e.g., Baddeley, Gathercole, & Papagno, 1998; Gupta, in press-a). Results for the experimental group were also compared with other assessments previously reported for the same children by MacWhinney, Feldman, Sacco, and Valdés-Pérez (2000). The children with brain injury showed substantial impairment relative to controls in the experimental tasks, in contrast with relatively unimpaired performance on measures of vocabulary and non-verbal intelligence. The relationships between word learning, non-word repetition, and immediate serial recall were similar to those observed in several other populations. These results support previous reports that there are persistent processing impairments following early brain injury, despite developmental plasticity. They also suggest that word learning, non-word repetition, and immediate serial recall may be relatively demanding tasks, and that their relationship is a fundamental aspect of the cognitive system. PMID:14585293

Errors in nonword repetition: bridging short- and long-term memory.

PubMed

Santos, F H; Bueno, O F A; Gathercole, S E

2006-03-01

According to the working memory model, the phonological loop is the component of working memory specialized in processing and manipulating limited amounts of speech-based information. The Children's Test of Nonword Repetition (CNRep) is a suitable measure of phonological short-term memory for English-speaking children, which was validated by the Brazilian Children's Test of Pseudoword Repetition (BCPR) as a Portuguese-language version. The objectives of the present study were: i) to investigate developmental aspects of the phonological memory processing by error analysis in the nonword repetition task, and ii) to examine phoneme (substitution, omission and addition) and order (migration) errors made in the BCPR by 180 normal Brazilian children of both sexes aged 4-10, from preschool to 4th grade. The dominant error was substitution [F(3,525) = 180.47; P < 0.0001]. The performance was age-related [F(4,175) = 14.53; P < 0.0001]. The length effect, i.e., more errors in long than in short items, was observed [F(3,519) = 108.36; P < 0.0001]. In 5-syllable pseudowords, errors occurred mainly in the middle of the stimuli, before the syllabic stress [F(4,16) = 6.03; P = 0.003]; substitutions appeared more at the end of the stimuli, after the stress [F(12,48) = 2.27; P = 0.02]. In conclusion, the BCPR error analysis supports the idea that phonological loop capacity is relatively constant during development, although school learning increases the efficiency of this system. Moreover, there are indications that long-term memory contributes to holding memory trace. The findings were discussed in terms of distinctiveness, clustering and redintegration hypotheses.

The role of selective attention in perceptual and affective priming

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Stone, M.; Ladd, S. L.; Gabrieli, J. D.

2000-01-01

Two kinds of perceptual priming (word identification and word fragment completion), as well as preference priming (that may rely on special affective mechanisms) were examined after participants either read or named the colors of words and nonwords at study. Participants named the colors of words more slowly than the colors of nonwords, indicating that lexical processing of the words occurred at study. Nonetheless, priming on all three tests was lower after color naming than after reading, despite evidence of lexical processing during color naming shown by slower responses to words than to nonwords. These results indicate that selective attention to (rather than the mere processing of) letter string identity at study is important for subsequent repetition priming.

The effects of cognitive – linguistic variables and language experience on behavioural and kinematic performances in nonword learning

PubMed Central

Sasisekaran, Jayanthi; Weisberg, Sanford

2013-01-01

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of cognitive – linguistic variables and language experience on behavioral and kinematic measures of nonword learning in young adults. Group 1 consisted of thirteen participants who spoke American English as the first and only language. Group 2 consisted of seven participants with varying levels of proficiency in a second language. Logistic regression of the percent of correct productions revealed short-term memory to be a significant contributor. The bilingual group showed better performance compared to the monolinguals. Linear regression of the kinematic data revealed that the short – term memory variable contributed significantly to movement coordination. Differences were not observed between the bilingual and the monolingual speakers in kinematic performance. Nonword properties including syllable length and complexity influenced both behavioral and kinematic performance. The findings supported the observation that nonword repetition is multiply determined in adults. PMID:22476630

Bilingual performance on nonword repetition in Spanish and English.

PubMed

Summers, Connie; Bohman, Thomas M; Gillam, Ronald B; Peña, Elizabeth D; Bedore, Lisa M

2010-01-01

Nonword repetition (NWR) involves the ability to perceive, store, recall and reproduce phonological sequences. These same abilities play a role in word and morpheme learning. Cross-linguistic studies of performance on NWR tasks, word learning, and morpheme learning yield patterns of increased performance on all three tasks as a function of age and language experience. These results are consistent with the idea that there may be universal information-processing mechanisms supporting language learning. Because bilingual children's language experience is divided across two languages, studying performance in two languages on NWR could inform one's understanding of the relationship between information processing and language learning. The primary aims of this study were to compare bilingual language learners' recall of Spanish-like and English-like items on NWR tasks and to assess the relationships between performance on NWR, semantics, and morphology tasks. Sixty-two Hispanic children exposed to English and Spanish were recruited from schools in central Texas, USA. Their parents reported on the children's input and output in both languages. The children completed NWR tasks and short tests of semantics and morphosyntax in both languages. Mixed-model analysis of variance was used to explore direct effects and interactions between the variables of nonword length, language experience, language outcome measures, and cumulative exposure on NWR performance. Children produced the Spanish-like nonwords more accurately than the English-like nonwords. NWR performance was significantly correlated to cumulative language experience in both English and Spanish. There were also significant correlations between NWR and morphosyntax but not semantics. Language knowledge appears to play a role in the task of NWR. The relationship between performance on morphosyntax and NWR tasks indicates children rely on similar language-learning mechanisms to mediate these tasks. More exposure to Spanish may increase abilities to repeat longer nonwords. This knowledge may shift across levels of bilingualism. Further research is needed to understand this relationship, as it is likely to have implications for language teaching or intervention for children with language impairments.

Preschool speech articulation and nonword repetition abilities may help predict eventual recovery or persistence of stuttering.

PubMed

Spencer, Caroline; Weber-Fox, Christine

2014-09-01

In preschool children, we investigated whether expressive and receptive language, phonological, articulatory, and/or verbal working memory proficiencies aid in predicting eventual recovery or persistence of stuttering. Participants included 65 children, including 25 children who do not stutter (CWNS) and 40 who stutter (CWS) recruited at age 3;9-5;8. At initial testing, participants were administered the Test of Auditory Comprehension of Language, 3rd edition (TACL-3), Structured Photographic Expressive Language Test, 3rd edition (SPELT-3), Bankson-Bernthal Test of Phonology-Consonant Inventory subtest (BBTOP-CI), Nonword Repetition Test (NRT; Dollaghan & Campbell, 1998), and Test of Auditory Perceptual Skills-Revised (TAPS-R) auditory number memory and auditory word memory subtests. Stuttering behaviors of CWS were assessed in subsequent years, forming groups whose stuttering eventually persisted (CWS-Per; n=19) or recovered (CWS-Rec; n=21). Proficiency scores in morphosyntactic skills, consonant production, verbal working memory for known words, and phonological working memory and speech production for novel nonwords obtained at the initial testing were analyzed for each group. CWS-Per were less proficient than CWNS and CWS-Rec in measures of consonant production (BBTOP-CI) and repetition of novel phonological sequences (NRT). In contrast, receptive language, expressive language, and verbal working memory abilities did not distinguish CWS-Rec from CWS-Per. Binary logistic regression analysis indicated that preschool BBTOP-CI scores and overall NRT proficiency significantly predicted future recovery status. Results suggest that phonological and speech articulation abilities in the preschool years should be considered with other predictive factors as part of a comprehensive risk assessment for the development of chronic stuttering. At the end of this activity the reader will be able to: (1) describe the current status of nonlinguistic and linguistic predictors for recovery and persistence of stuttering; (2) summarize current evidence regarding the potential value of consonant cluster articulation and nonword repetition abilities in helping to predict stuttering outcome in preschool children; (3) discuss the current findings in relation to potential implications for theories of developmental stuttering; (4) discuss the current findings in relation to potential considerations for the evaluation and treatment of developmental stuttering. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Working memory and sentence comprehension of Hong Kong Chinese children with specific language impairment.

PubMed

Siu, Elaine; Man, David W K

2006-09-01

Children with Specific Language Impairment present with delayed language development, but do not have a history of hearing impairment, mental deficiency, or associated social or behavioral problems. Non-word repetition was suggested as an index to reflect the capacity of phonological working memory. There is a paucity of such studies among Hong Kong Chinese children. This preliminary study aimed to examine the relationship between phonological working memory and Specific Language Impairment, through the processes of non-word repetition and sentence comprehension, of children with Specific Language Impairment and pre-school children with normal language development. Both groups of children were screened by a standardized language test. A list of Cantonese (the commonest dialect used in Hong Kong) multisyllabic nonsense utterances and a set of 18 sentences were developed for this study. t-tests and Pearson correlation were used to study the relationship between non-word repetition, working memory and specific language impairment. Twenty-three pre-school children with Specific Language Impairment (mean age = 68.30 months; SD = 6.90) and another 23 pre-school children (mean age = 67.30 months; SD = 6.16) participated in the study. Significant difference performance was found between the Specific Language Impairment group and normal language group in the multisyllabic nonsense utterances repetition task and the sentence comprehension task. Length effect was noted in Specific Language Impairment group children, which is consistent with the findings of other literature. In addition, correlations were also observed between the number of nonsense utterances repeated and the number of elements comprehended. Cantonese multisyllabic nonsense utterances might be worth further developing as a screening tool for the early detection of children with Specific Language Impairment.

Repetition and Masked Form Priming within and between Languages Using Word and Nonword Neighbors

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dijkstra, Ton; Hilberink-Schulpen, Beryl; van Heuven, Walter J. B.

2010-01-01

If access to the bilingual lexicon takes place in a language independent way, monolingual repetition and masked form priming accounts should be directly applicable to bilinguals. We tested such an account (Grainger and Jacobs, 1999) and extended it to explain bilingual effects from L2 to L1. Dutch-English bilinguals made a lexical decision on a…

Central timing deficits in subtypes of primary speech disorders.

PubMed

Peter, Beate; Stoel-Gammon, Carol

2008-03-01

Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a proposed speech disorder subtype that interferes with motor planning and/or programming, affecting prosody in many cases. Pilot data (Peter & Stoel-Gammon, 2005) were consistent with the notion that deficits in timing accuracy in speech and music-related tasks may be associated with CAS. This study replicated and expanded earlier findings. Eleven children with speech disorders and age-and gender-matched controls participated in non-word imitation, clapped rhythm imitation, and paced repetitive tapping tasks. Results suggest a central timing deficit, expressed in both the oral and the limb modality, and observable in two different types of timing measures, overall rhythmic structures and small-scale durations. Associations among timing measures were strongest in the participants with speech disorders, who also showed lower timing accuracy than the controls in all measures. The number of observed CAS characteristics was associated with timing deficits.

Dissociated repetition deficits in aphasia can reflect flexible interactions between left dorsal and ventral streams and gender-dimorphic architecture of the right dorsal stream

PubMed Central

Berthier, Marcelo L.; Froudist Walsh, Seán; Dávila, Guadalupe; Nabrozidis, Alejandro; Juárez y Ruiz de Mier, Rocío; Gutiérrez, Antonio; De-Torres, Irene; Ruiz-Cruces, Rafael; Alfaro, Francisco; García-Casares, Natalia

2013-01-01

Assessment of brain-damaged subjects presenting with dissociated repetition deficits after selective injury to either the left dorsal or ventral auditory pathways can provide further insight on their respective roles in verbal repetition. We evaluated repetition performance and its neural correlates using multimodal imaging (anatomical MRI, DTI, fMRI, and18FDG-PET) in a female patient with transcortical motor aphasia (TCMA) and in a male patient with conduction aphasia (CA) who had small contiguous but non-overlapping left perisylvian infarctions. Repetition in the TCMA patient was fully preserved except for a mild impairment in nonwords and digits, whereas the CA patient had impaired repetition of nonwords, digits and word triplet lists. Sentence repetition was impaired, but he repeated novel sentences significantly better than clichés. The TCMA patient had tissue damage and reduced metabolism in the left sensorimotor cortex and insula. DTI showed damage to the left temporo-frontal and parieto-frontal segments of the arcuate fasciculus (AF) and part of the left ventral stream together with well-developed right dorsal and ventral streams, as has been reported in more than one-third of females. The CA patient had tissue damage and reduced metabolic activity in the left temporoparietal cortex with additional metabolic decrements in the left frontal lobe. DTI showed damage to the left temporo-parietal and temporo-frontal segments of the AF, but the ventral stream was spared. The direct segment of the AF in the right hemisphere was also absent with only vestigial remains of the other dorsal subcomponents present, as is often found in males. fMRI during word and nonword repetition revealed bilateral perisylvian activation in the TCMA patient suggesting recruitment of spared segments of the left dorsal stream and right dorsal stream with propagation of signals to temporal lobe structures suggesting a compensatory reallocation of resources via the ventral streams. The CA patient showed a greater activation of these cortical areas than the TCMA patient, but these changes did not result in normal performance. Repetition of word triplet lists activated bilateral perisylvian cortices in both patients, but activation in the CA patient with very poor performance was restricted to small frontal and posterior temporal foci bilaterally. These findings suggest that dissociated repetition deficits in our cases are probably reliant on flexible interactions between left dorsal stream (spared segments, short tracts remains) and left ventral stream and on gender-dimorphic architecture of the right dorsal stream. PMID:24391569

Dissociated repetition deficits in aphasia can reflect flexible interactions between left dorsal and ventral streams and gender-dimorphic architecture of the right dorsal stream.

PubMed

Berthier, Marcelo L; Froudist Walsh, Seán; Dávila, Guadalupe; Nabrozidis, Alejandro; Juárez Y Ruiz de Mier, Rocío; Gutiérrez, Antonio; De-Torres, Irene; Ruiz-Cruces, Rafael; Alfaro, Francisco; García-Casares, Natalia

2013-01-01

Assessment of brain-damaged subjects presenting with dissociated repetition deficits after selective injury to either the left dorsal or ventral auditory pathways can provide further insight on their respective roles in verbal repetition. We evaluated repetition performance and its neural correlates using multimodal imaging (anatomical MRI, DTI, fMRI, and(18)FDG-PET) in a female patient with transcortical motor aphasia (TCMA) and in a male patient with conduction aphasia (CA) who had small contiguous but non-overlapping left perisylvian infarctions. Repetition in the TCMA patient was fully preserved except for a mild impairment in nonwords and digits, whereas the CA patient had impaired repetition of nonwords, digits and word triplet lists. Sentence repetition was impaired, but he repeated novel sentences significantly better than clichés. The TCMA patient had tissue damage and reduced metabolism in the left sensorimotor cortex and insula. DTI showed damage to the left temporo-frontal and parieto-frontal segments of the arcuate fasciculus (AF) and part of the left ventral stream together with well-developed right dorsal and ventral streams, as has been reported in more than one-third of females. The CA patient had tissue damage and reduced metabolic activity in the left temporoparietal cortex with additional metabolic decrements in the left frontal lobe. DTI showed damage to the left temporo-parietal and temporo-frontal segments of the AF, but the ventral stream was spared. The direct segment of the AF in the right hemisphere was also absent with only vestigial remains of the other dorsal subcomponents present, as is often found in males. fMRI during word and nonword repetition revealed bilateral perisylvian activation in the TCMA patient suggesting recruitment of spared segments of the left dorsal stream and right dorsal stream with propagation of signals to temporal lobe structures suggesting a compensatory reallocation of resources via the ventral streams. The CA patient showed a greater activation of these cortical areas than the TCMA patient, but these changes did not result in normal performance. Repetition of word triplet lists activated bilateral perisylvian cortices in both patients, but activation in the CA patient with very poor performance was restricted to small frontal and posterior temporal foci bilaterally. These findings suggest that dissociated repetition deficits in our cases are probably reliant on flexible interactions between left dorsal stream (spared segments, short tracts remains) and left ventral stream and on gender-dimorphic architecture of the right dorsal stream.

Hebb learning, verbal short-term memory, and the acquisition of phonological forms in children.

PubMed

Mosse, Emma K; Jarrold, Christopher

2008-04-01

Recent work using the Hebb effect as a marker for implicit long-term acquisition of serial order has demonstrated a functional equivalence across verbal and visuospatial short-term memory. The current study extends this observation to a sample of five- to six-year-olds using verbal and spatial immediate serial recall and also correlates the magnitude of Hebb learning with explicit measures of word and nonword paired-associate learning. Comparable Hebb effects were observed in both domains, but only nonword learning was significantly related to the magnitude of Hebb learning. Nonword learning was also independently related to individuals' general level of verbal serial recall. This suggests that vocabulary acquisition depends on both a domain-specific short-term memory system and a domain-general process of learning through repetition.

Long-term associative learning predicts verbal short-term memory performance.

PubMed

Jones, Gary; Macken, Bill

2018-02-01

Studies using tests such as digit span and nonword repetition have implicated short-term memory across a range of developmental domains. Such tests ostensibly assess specialized processes for the short-term manipulation and maintenance of information that are often argued to enable long-term learning. However, there is considerable evidence for an influence of long-term linguistic learning on performance in short-term memory tasks that brings into question the role of a specialized short-term memory system separate from long-term knowledge. Using natural language corpora, we show experimentally and computationally that performance on three widely used measures of short-term memory (digit span, nonword repetition, and sentence recall) can be predicted from simple associative learning operating on the linguistic environment to which a typical child may have been exposed. The findings support the broad view that short-term verbal memory performance reflects the application of long-term language knowledge to the experimental setting.

Longitudinal trajectories of the representation and access to phonological information in bilingual children with specific language impairment.

PubMed

Buil-Legaz, Lucia; Aguilar-Mediavilla, Eva; Adrover-Roig, Daniel

2016-10-01

Language development in children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) is still poorly understood, especially if children with SLI are bilingual. This study describes the longitudinal trajectory of several linguistic abilities in bilingual children with SLI relative to bilingual control children matched by their age and socioeconomic status. A set of measures of non-word repetition, sentence repetition, phonological awareness, rapid automatic naming and verbal fluency were collected at three time points, from 6-12 years of age using a prospective longitudinal design. Results revealed that, at all ages, children with SLI obtained lower values in measures of sentence repetition, non-word repetition, phonological fluency and phonological awareness (without visual cues) when compared to typically-developing children. Other measures, such as rapid automatic naming, improved over time, given that differences at 6 years of age did not persist at further moments of testing. Other linguistic measures, such as phonological awareness (with visual cues) and semantic fluency were equivalent between both groups across time. Children with SLI manifest persistent difficulties in tasks involved in manipulating segments of words and in maintaining verbal units active in phonological working memory, while other abilities, such as the access to underlying phonological representations are unaffected.

Phonological Representations and Early Literacy in Chinese

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kidd, Joanna C.; Shum, Kathy Kar-Man; Ho, Connie Suk-Han; Au, Terry Kit-fong

2015-01-01

Phonological processing skills predict early reading development, but what underlies developing phonological processing skills? Phonological representations of 140 native Cantonese-speaking Chinese children (age 4-10) were assessed with speech gating, mispronunciation detection, and nonword repetition tasks; their nonverbal IQ, reading, and…

A model for evidence accumulation in the lexical decision task.

PubMed

Wagenmakers, Eric-Jan; Steyvers, Mark; Raaijmakers, Jeroen G W; Shiffrin, Richard M; van Rijn, Hedderik; Zeelenberg, René

2004-05-01

We present a new model for lexical decision, REM-LD, that is based on REM theory (e.g., ). REM-LD uses a principled (i.e., Bayes' rule) decision process that simultaneously considers the diagnosticity of the evidence for the 'WORD' response and the 'NONWORD' response. The model calculates the odds ratio that the presented stimulus is a word or a nonword by averaging likelihood ratios for lexical entries from a small neighborhood of similar words. We report two experiments that used a signal-to-respond paradigm to obtain information about the time course of lexical processing. Experiment 1 verified the prediction of the model that the frequency of the word stimuli affects performance for nonword stimuli. Experiment 2 was done to study the effects of nonword lexicality, word frequency, and repetition priming and to demonstrate how REM-LD can account for the observed results. We discuss how REM-LD could be extended to account for effects of phonology such as the pseudohomophone effect, and how REM-LD can predict response times in the traditional 'respond-when-ready' paradigm.

Linking working memory and long-term memory: a computational model of the learning of new words.

PubMed

Jones, Gary; Gobet, Fernand; Pine, Julian M

2007-11-01

The nonword repetition (NWR) test has been shown to be a good predictor of children's vocabulary size. NWR performance has been explained using phonological working memory, which is seen as a critical component in the learning of new words. However, no detailed specification of the link between phonological working memory and long-term memory (LTM) has been proposed. In this paper, we present a computational model of children's vocabulary acquisition (EPAM-VOC) that specifies how phonological working memory and LTM interact. The model learns phoneme sequences, which are stored in LTM and mediate how much information can be held in working memory. The model's behaviour is compared with that of children in a new study of NWR, conducted in order to ensure the same nonword stimuli and methodology across ages. EPAM-VOC shows a pattern of results similar to that of children: performance is better for shorter nonwords and for wordlike nonwords, and performance improves with age. EPAM-VOC also simulates the superior performance for single consonant nonwords over clustered consonant nonwords found in previous NWR studies. EPAM-VOC provides a simple and elegant computational account of some of the key processes involved in the learning of new words: it specifies how phonological working memory and LTM interact; makes testable predictions; and suggests that developmental changes in NWR performance may reflect differences in the amount of information that has been encoded in LTM rather than developmental changes in working memory capacity.

PRESCHOOL SPEECH ARTICULATION AND NONWORD REPETITION ABILITIES MAY HELP PREDICT EVENTUAL RECOVERY OR PERSISTENCE OF STUTTERING

PubMed Central

Spencer, Caroline; Weber-Fox, Christine

2014-01-01

Purpose In preschool children, we investigated whether expressive and receptive language, phonological, articulatory, and/or verbal working memory proficiencies aid in predicting eventual recovery or persistence of stuttering. Methods Participants included 65 children, including 25 children who do not stutter (CWNS) and 40 who stutter (CWS) recruited at age 3;9–5;8. At initial testing, participants were administered the Test of Auditory Comprehension of Language, 3rd edition (TACL-3), Structured Photographic Expressive Language Test, 3rd edition (SPELT-3), Bankson-Bernthal Test of Phonology-Consonant Inventory subtest (BBTOP-CI), Nonword Repetition Test (NRT; Dollaghan & Campbell, 1998), and Test of Auditory Perceptual Skills-Revised (TAPS-R) auditory number memory and auditory word memory subtests. Stuttering behaviors of CWS were assessed in subsequent years, forming groups whose stuttering eventually persisted (CWS-Per; n=19) or recovered (CWS-Rec; n=21). Proficiency scores in morphosyntactic skills, consonant production, verbal working memory for known words, and phonological working memory and speech production for novel nonwords obtained at the initial testing were analyzed for each group. Results CWS-Per were less proficient than CWNS and CWS-Rec in measures of consonant production (BBTOP-CI) and repetition of novel phonological sequences (NRT). In contrast, receptive language, expressive language, and verbal working memory abilities did not distinguish CWS-Rec from CWS-Per. Binary logistic regression analysis indicated that preschool BBTOP-CI scores and overall NRT proficiency significantly predicted future recovery status. Conclusion Results suggest that phonological and speech articulation abilities in the preschool years should be considered with other predictive factors as part of a comprehensive risk assessment for the development of chronic stuttering. PMID:25173455

The role of cognitive training in the neurorehabilitation of a patient who survived a lightning strike. A case study.

PubMed

Tánczos, Tímea; Zádori, Dénes; Jakab, Katalin; Hnyilicza, Zsuzsanna; Klivényi, Péter; Keresztes, László; Engelhardt, József; Németh, Dezső; Vécsei, László

2014-01-01

Lightning-related injuries most often involve impairment of the functions of the central and peripheral nervous systems, usually including cognitive dysfunctions. We evaluated the cognitive deficit of a patient who had survived a lightning strike and measured the improvement after her cognitive training. This therapeutic method appears to be a powerful tool in the neurorehabilitation treatment. The aim of this case study was to prove the beneficial effects of cognitive training as part of the neurorehabilitation after a lightning strike. Six neuropsychological functions were examined in order to test the cognitive status of the patient before and after the 2-month cognitive training: phonological short-term memory (digit span test and word repetitions test), visuo-spatial short-term memory (Corsi Block Tapping Test), working memory (backward digit span test and listening span test), executive functions (letter and semantic fluencies), language functions (non-word repetition test, Pléh-Palotás-Lörik (PPL) test and sentence repetition test) and episodic memory (Rivermead Behavioral Memory Test and Mini Mental State Examination). We also utilized these tests in aged-matched healthy individuals so as to be able to characterize the domains of the observed improvements more precisely. The patient exhibited a considerable improvement in the backward digit span, semantic fluency, non-word repetition, PPL, sentence repetition and Rivermead Behavioral Memory tests. The cognitive training played an important role in the neurorehabilitation treatment of this lightning injury patient. It considerably improved her quality of life through the functional recovery.

Impairment: The Case of Phonotactic Probability and Nonword Repetition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McKean, Cristina; Letts, Carolyn; Howard, David

2013-01-01

Purpose: In this study, the authors aimed to explore the relationship between lexical and phonological knowledge in children with primary language impairment (PLI) through the application of a developmental methodology. Specifically, they tested whether there is evidence for an impairment in the process of phonological abstraction in this group of…

Role of Working Memory in Typically Developing Children's Complex Sentence Comprehension

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Montgomery, James W.; Magimairaj, Beula M.; O'Malley, Michelle H.

2008-01-01

The influence of three mechanisms of working memory (phonological short-term memory (PSTM capacity), attentional resource control/allocation, and processing speed) on children's complex (and simple) sentence comprehension was investigated. Fifty two children (6-12 years) completed a nonword repetition task (indexing PSTM), concurrent verbal…

Contributions of Phonological Processing Skills to Reading Skills in Arabic Speaking Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Taibah, Nadia J.; Haynes, Charles W.

2011-01-01

This cross-sectional study investigated contributions of phonological awareness (Elision and blending), rapid naming (object, color, letter, and digit), and phonological memory (nonword repetition and Digit Span) to basic decoding and fluency skills in Arabic. Participants were 237 Arabic speaking children from Grades K-3. Dependent measures…

Phonological Networks and New Word Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Service, Elisabet

2006-01-01

The first report of a connection between vocabulary learning and phonological short-term memory was published in 1988 (Baddeley, Papagno, & Vallar, 1988). At that time, both Susan Gathercole and I were involved in longitudinal studies, investigating the relation between nonword repetition and language learning. We both found a connection. Now,…

Reevaluating split-fovea processing in word recognition: hemispheric dominance, retinal location, and the word-nonword effect.

PubMed

Jordan, Timothy R; Paterson, Kevin B; Kurtev, Stoyan

2009-03-01

Many studies have claimed that hemispheric projections are split precisely at the foveal midline and so hemispheric asymmetry affects word recognition right up to the point of fixation. To investigate this claim, four-letter words and nonwords were presented to the left or right of fixation, either close to fixation in foveal vision or farther from fixation in extrafoveal vision. Presentation accuracy was controlled using an eyetracker linked to a fixation-contingent display. Words presented foveally produced identical performance on each side of fixation, but words presented extrafoveally showed a clear left-hemisphere (LH) advantage. Nonwords produced no evidence of hemispheric asymmetry in any location. Foveal stimuli also produced an identical word-nonword effect on each side of fixation, whereas extrafoveal stimuli produced a word-nonword effect only for LH (not right-hemisphere) displays. These findings indicate that functional unilateral projections to contralateral hemispheres exist in extrafoveal locations but provide no evidence of a functional division in hemispheric processing at fixation.

Increases in Phonotactic Probability Facilitate Spoken Nonword Repetition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vitevitch, M.S.; Luce, P.A.

2005-01-01

Lipinski and Gupta (2005) report the results of 12 experiments and numerous analyses that attempted to examine further the effects of phonotactic probability originally reported in Vitevitch and Luce (1998, and further explored in Vitevitch & Luce 1999). They suggested that Vitevitch and Luce's results were due to differences in the duration of…

Maturation of Rapid Auditory Temporal Processing and Subsequent Nonword Repetition Performance in Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fox, Allison M.; Reid, Corinne L.; Anderson, Mike; Richardson, Cassandra; Bishop, Dorothy V. M.

2012-01-01

According to the rapid auditory processing theory, the ability to parse incoming auditory information underpins learning of oral and written language. There is wide variation in this low-level perceptual ability, which appears to follow a protracted developmental course. We studied the development of rapid auditory processing using event-related…

Redintegration and the Benefits of Long-Term Knowledge in Verbal Short-Term Memory: An Evaluation of Schweickert's (1993) Multinomial Processing Tree Model

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thorn, Annabel S. C.; Gathercole, Susan E.; Frankish, Clive R.

2005-01-01

The impact of four long-term knowledge variables on serial recall accuracy was investigated. Serial recall was tested for high and low frequency words and high and low phonotactic frequency nonwords in 2 groups: monolingual English speakers and French-English bilinguals. For both groups the recall advantage for words over nonwords reflected more…

[Working memory abilities and the severity of phonological disorders].

PubMed

Linassi, Lisiane Zorzella; Keske-Soares, Marcia; Mota, Helena Bolli

2005-01-01

Working memory. To verify the performance of working memory abilities and their relation with the severity of phonological disorders. 45 children, with ages between 5.0 and 7.11 years, with evolutional phonological disorders (EFD), 17 female and 18 male, were evaluated. All subjects were assessed using the Child Phonological Evaluation proposed by Yavas et al. (1991). The severity of the disorder was determined by the Percentage of Correct Consonants (PCC) proposed by Shriberg and Kwiatkowski (1982), classifying the phonological disorder as severe, moderate-severe, average-moderate and average. After that, subtest 5 of the Psycholinguistic Abilities Test (ITPA--Bogossian & Santos, 1977) and the non-word repetition test (Kessler, 1997) were applied. After analyzing the data according the statistical tests of Kruskal Wallis and Duncan, it was verified that the performance of moderate-severe and severe individuals in the non-word repetition test was inferior to that of average-moderate and average individuals. However, performance results in the digit repetition test did not present a positive correlation with severity. The performance of phonological memory has a relation with the severity of phonological disorders. This allows us to accept the idea that the phonologic memory is related to speech production. Regarding the central executor, the results indicate that the performance in digit repetition, used to assess the central executor, did not present a correlation with the severity of the disorder. This can be justified by the fact that the central executor is more directly related to vocabulary acquisition and is responsible for processing and storing information.

A model linking immediate serial recall, the Hebb repetition effect and the learning of phonological word forms

PubMed Central

Page, M. P. A.; Norris, D.

2009-01-01

We briefly review the considerable evidence for a common ordering mechanism underlying both immediate serial recall (ISR) tasks (e.g. digit span, non-word repetition) and the learning of phonological word forms. In addition, we discuss how recent work on the Hebb repetition effect is consistent with the idea that learning in this task is itself a laboratory analogue of the sequence-learning component of phonological word-form learning. In this light, we present a unifying modelling framework that seeks to account for ISR and Hebb repetition effects, while being extensible to word-form learning. Because word-form learning is performed in the service of later word recognition, our modelling framework also subsumes a mechanism for word recognition from continuous speech. Simulations of a computational implementation of the modelling framework are presented and are shown to be in accordance with data from the Hebb repetition paradigm. PMID:19933143

Do Spoken Nonword and Sentence Repetition Tasks Discriminate Language Impairment in Children with an ASD?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Harper-Hill, Keely; Copland, David; Arnott, Wendy

2013-01-01

The primary aim of this paper was to investigate heterogeneity in language abilities of children with a confirmed diagnosis of an ASD (N = 20) and children with typical development (TD; N = 15). Group comparisons revealed no differences between ASD and TD participants on standard clinical assessments of language ability, reading ability or…

Speech Motor Sequence Learning: Acquisition and Retention in Parkinson Disease and Normal Aging

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Whitfield, Jason A.; Goberman, Alexander M.

2017-01-01

Purpose: The aim of the current investigation was to examine speech motor sequence learning in neurologically healthy younger adults, neurologically healthy older adults, and individuals with Parkinson disease (PD) over a 2-day period. Method: A sequential nonword repetition task was used to examine learning over 2 days. Participants practiced a…

Growth and Decline in Language and Phonological Memory over Two Years among Adolescents with Down Syndrome

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Conners, Frances A.; Tungate, Andrew S.; Abbeduto, Leonard; Merrill, Edward C.; Faught, Gayle G.

2018-01-01

Forty-two adolescents with Down syndrome (DS) ages 10 to 21 years completed a battery of language and phonological memory measures twice, 2 years apart. Individual differences were highly stable across two years. Receptive vocabulary scores improved, there was no change in receptive or expressive grammar scores, and nonword repetition scores…

Speech Characteristics of 8-Year-Old Children: Findings from a Prospective Population Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wren, Yvonne; McLeod, Sharynne; White, Paul; Miller, Laura L.; Roulstone, Sue

2013-01-01

Speech disorder that continues into middle childhood is rarely studied compared with speech disorder in the early years. Speech production in single words, connected speech and nonword repetition was assessed for 7390 eight-year-old children within the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). The majority (n=6399) had typical…

Computer Simulations of Developmental Change: The Contributions of Working Memory Capacity and Long-Term Knowledge

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jones, Gary; Gobet, Fernand; Pine, Julian M.

2008-01-01

Increasing working memory (WM) capacity is often cited as a major influence on children's development and yet WM capacity is difficult to examine independently of long-term knowledge. A computational model of children's nonword repetition (NWR) performance is presented that independently manipulates long-term knowledge and WM capacity to determine…

Redintegration and the benefits of long-term knowledge in verbal short-term memory: an evaluation of Schweickert's (1993) multinomial processing tree model.

PubMed

Thorn, Annabel S C; Gathercole, Susan E; Frankish, Clive R

2005-03-01

The impact of four long-term knowledge variables on serial recall accuracy was investigated. Serial recall was tested for high and low frequency words and high and low phonotactic frequency nonwords in 2 groups: monolingual English speakers and French-English bilinguals. For both groups the recall advantage for words over nonwords reflected more fully correct recalls with fewer recall attempts that consisted of fragments of the target memory items (one or two of the three target phonemes recalled correctly); completely incorrect recalls were equivalent for the 2 list types. However, word frequency (for both groups), nonword phonotactic frequency (for the monolingual group), and language familiarity all influenced the proportions of completely incorrect recalls that were made. These results are not consistent with the view that long-term knowledge influences on immediate recall accuracy can be exclusively attributed to a redintegration process of the type specified in multinomial processing tree model of immediate recall. The finding of a differential influence on completely incorrect recalls of these four long-term knowledge variables suggests instead that the beneficial effects of long-term knowledge on short-term recall accuracy are mediated by more than one mechanism.

The relationship between phonological short-term memory, receptive vocabulary, and fast mapping in children with specific language impairment.

PubMed

Jackson, Emily; Leitao, Suze; Claessen, Mary

2016-01-01

Children with specific language impairment (SLI) often experience word-learning difficulties, which are suggested to originate in the early stage of word learning: fast mapping. Some previous research indicates significantly poorer fast mapping capabilities in children with SLI compared with typically developing (TD) counterparts, with a range of methodological factors impacting on the consistency of this finding. Research has explored key issues that might underlie fast mapping difficulties in children with SLI, with strong theoretical support but little empirical evidence for the role of phonological short-term memory (STM). Additionally, further research is required to explore the influence of receptive vocabulary on fast mapping capabilities. Understanding the factors associated with fast mapping difficulties that are experienced by children with SLI may lead to greater theoretically driven word-learning intervention. To investigate whether children with SLI demonstrate significant difficulties with fast mapping, and to explore the related factors. It was hypothesized that children with SLI would score significantly lower on a fast mapping production task compared with TD children, and that phonological STM and receptive vocabulary would significantly predict fast mapping production scores in both groups of children. Twenty-three children with SLI (mean = 64.39 months, SD = 4.10 months) and 26 TD children (mean = 65.92 months, SD = 2.98) were recruited from specialist language and mainstream schools. All participants took part in a unique, interactive fast-mapping task whereby nine novel objects with non-word labels were presented and production accuracy was assessed. A non-word repetition test and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Fourth Edition (PPVT-IV) were also administered as measures of phonological STM capacity and receptive vocabulary, respectively. Results of the fast-mapping task indicated that children with SLI had significantly poorer fast mapping production scores than TD children. Scores from the non-word repetition task were also significantly lower for the SLI group, revealing reduced phonological STM capacity. Phonological STM capacity and receptive vocabulary emerged as significant predictors of fast mapping performance when the group data were combined in a multiple regression analysis. These results suggest that the word-learning difficulties experienced by children with SLI may originate at the fast mapping stage, and that phonological STM and receptive vocabulary significantly predict fast mapping ability. These findings contribute to the theoretical understanding of word-learning difficulties in children with SLI and may inform lexical learning intervention. © 2015 Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.

Phonological Short-Term and Working Memory in Bilinguals' Native and Second Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kaushanskaya, Margarita; Yoo, Jeewon

2013-01-01

The goal of the current study was to examine bilinguals' phonological short-term and working memory performance in their native/first (L1) and second (L2) languages. Korean-English bilinguals were tested in both Korean (L1) and English (L2). Short-term memory (STM) was measured via a nonword repetition task, where participants repeated…

Perception and Confusion of Speech Sounds by Adults with a Cochlear Implant

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rodvik, Arne K.

2008-01-01

The aim of this pilot study was to identify the most common speech sound confusions of 5 Norwegian cochlear implanted post-lingually deafened adults. We played recorded nonwords, aCa, iCi and bVb, to our informants, asked them to repeat what they heard, recorded their repetitions and transcribed these phonetically. We arranged the collected data…

A Closer Look at Phonology as a Predictor of Spoken Sentence Processing and Word Reading

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Myers, Suzanne; Robertson, Erin K.

2015-01-01

The goal of this study was to tease apart the roles of phonological awareness (pA) and phonological short-term memory (pSTM) in sentence comprehension, sentence production, and word reading. Children 6- to 10-years of age (N = 377) completed standardized tests of pA ("Elision") and pSTM ("Nonword Repetition") from the…

Linking Working Memory and Long-Term Memory: A Computational Model of the Learning of New Words

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jones, Gary; Gobet, Fernand; Pine, Julian M.

2007-01-01

The nonword repetition (NWR) test has been shown to be a good predictor of children's vocabulary size. NWR performance has been explained using phonological working memory, which is seen as a critical component in the learning of new words. However, no detailed specification of the link between phonological working memory and long-term memory…

Why Chunking Should be Considered as an Explanation for Developmental Change before Short-Term Memory Capacity and Processing Speed

PubMed Central

Jones, Gary

2012-01-01

The chunking hypothesis suggests that during the repeated exposure of stimulus material, information is organized into increasingly larger chunks. Many researchers have not considered the full power of the chunking hypothesis as both a learning mechanism and as an explanation of human behavior. Indeed, in developmental psychology there is relatively little mention of chunking and yet it can be the underlying cause of some of the mechanisms of development that have been proposed. This paper illustrates the chunking hypothesis in the domain of non-word repetition, a task that is a strong predictor of a child’s language learning. A computer simulation of non-word repetition that instantiates the chunking mechanism shows that: (1) chunking causes task behavior to improve over time, consistent with children’s performance; and (2) chunking causes perceived changes in areas such as short-term memory capacity and processing speed that are often cited as mechanisms of child development. Researchers should be cautious when considering explanations of developmental data, since chunking may be able to explain differences in performance without the need for additional mechanisms of development. PMID:22715331

Complex Sentence Comprehension and Working Memory in Children With Specific Language Impairment

PubMed Central

Montgomery, James W.; Evans, Julia L.

2015-01-01

Purpose This study investigated the association of 2 mechanisms of working memory (phonological short-term memory [PSTM], attentional resource capacity/allocation) with the sentence comprehension of school-age children with specific language impairment (SLI) and 2 groups of control children. Method Twenty-four children with SLI, 18 age-matched (CA) children, and 16 language- and memory-matched (LMM) children completed a nonword repetition task (PSTM), the competing language processing task (CLPT; resource capacity/allocation), and a sentence comprehension task comprising complex and simple sentences. Results (1) The SLI group performed worse than the CA group on each memory task; (2) all 3 groups showed comparable simple sentence comprehension, but for complex sentences, the SLI and LMM groups performed worse than the CA group; (3) for the SLI group, (a) CLPT correlated with complex sentence comprehension, and (b) nonword repetition correlated with simple sentence comprehension; (4) for CA children, neither memory variable correlated with either sentence type; and (5) for LMM children, only CLPT correlated with complex sentences. Conclusions Comprehension of both complex and simple grammar by school-age children with SLI is a mentally demanding activity, requiring significant working memory resources. PMID:18723601

Explaining lexical-semantic deficits in specific language impairment: the role of phonological similarity, phonological working memory, and lexical competition.

PubMed

Mainela-Arnold, Elina; Evans, Julia L; Coady, Jeffry A

2010-12-01

In this study, the authors investigated potential explanations for sparse lexical-semantic representations in children with specific language impairment (SLI) and typically developing peers. The role of auditory perception, phonological working memory, and lexical competition were investigated. Participants included 32 children (ages 8;5-12;3 [years;months]): Sixteen children with SLI and 16 typically developing age- and nonverbal IQ-matched peers (CA). Children's word definitions were investigated. The words to be defined were manipulated for phonological neighborhood density. Nonword repetition and two lexical competition measures were tested as predictors of word definition abilities. Children with SLI gave word definitions with fewer content details than children in the CA group. Compared with the CA group, the definitions of children in the SLI group were not disproportionately impacted by phonological neighborhood density. Lexical competition was a significant unique predictor of children's word definitions, but nonword repetition was not. Individual differences in richness of lexical semantic representations as well as differences between children with SLI and typically developing peers may-at least, in part-be explained by processes of competition. However, difficulty with auditory perception or phonological working memory does not fully explain difficulties in lexical semantics.

Speech processing in children with functional articulation disorders.

PubMed

Gósy, Mária; Horváth, Viktória

2015-03-01

This study explored auditory speech processing and comprehension abilities in 5-8-year-old monolingual Hungarian children with functional articulation disorders (FADs) and their typically developing peers. Our main hypothesis was that children with FAD would show co-existing auditory speech processing disorders, with different levels of these skills depending on the nature of the receptive processes. The tasks included (i) sentence and non-word repetitions, (ii) non-word discrimination and (iii) sentence and story comprehension. Results suggest that the auditory speech processing of children with FAD is underdeveloped compared with that of typically developing children, and largely varies across task types. In addition, there are differences between children with FAD and controls in all age groups from 5 to 8 years. Our results have several clinical implications.

Speech perception and phonological short-term memory capacity in language impairment: preliminary evidence from adolescents with specific language impairment (SLI) and autism spectrum disorders (ASD).

PubMed

Loucas, Tom; Riches, Nick Greatorex; Charman, Tony; Pickles, Andrew; Simonoff, Emily; Chandler, Susie; Baird, Gillian

2010-01-01

The cognitive bases of language impairment in specific language impairment (SLI) and autism spectrum disorders (ASD) were investigated in a novel non-word comparison task which manipulated phonological short-term memory (PSTM) and speech perception, both implicated in poor non-word repetition. This study aimed to investigate the contributions of PSTM and speech perception in non-word processing and whether individuals with SLI and ASD plus language impairment (ALI) show similar or different patterns of deficit in these cognitive processes. Three groups of adolescents (aged 14-17 years), 14 with SLI, 16 with ALI, and 17 age and non-verbal IQ matched typically developing (TD) controls, made speeded discriminations between non-word pairs. Stimuli varied in PSTM load (two- or four-syllables) and speech perception load (mismatches on a word-initial or word-medial segment). Reaction times showed effects of both non-word length and mismatch position and these factors interacted: four-syllable and word-initial mismatch stimuli resulted in the slowest decisions. Individuals with language impairment showed the same pattern of performance as those with typical development in the reaction time data. A marginal interaction between group and item length was driven by the SLI and ALI groups being less accurate with long items than short ones, a difference not found in the TD group. Non-word discrimination suggests that there are similarities and differences between adolescents with SLI and ALI and their TD peers. Reaction times appear to be affected by increasing PSTM and speech perception loads in a similar way. However, there was some, albeit weaker, evidence that adolescents with SLI and ALI are less accurate than TD individuals, with both showing an effect of PSTM load. This may indicate, at some level, the processing substrate supporting both PSTM and speech perception is intact in adolescents with SLI and ALI, but also in both there may be impaired access to PSTM resources.

Comparing different kinds of words and word-word relations to test an habituation model of priming.

PubMed

Rieth, Cory A; Huber, David E

2017-06-01

Huber and O'Reilly (2003) proposed that neural habituation exists to solve a temporal parsing problem, minimizing blending between one word and the next when words are visually presented in rapid succession. They developed a neural dynamics habituation model, explaining the finding that short duration primes produce positive priming whereas long duration primes produce negative repetition priming. The model contains three layers of processing, including a visual input layer, an orthographic layer, and a lexical-semantic layer. The predicted effect of prime duration depends both on this assumed representational hierarchy and the assumption that synaptic depression underlies habituation. The current study tested these assumptions by comparing different kinds of words (e.g., words versus non-words) and different kinds of word-word relations (e.g., associative versus repetition). For each experiment, the predictions of the original model were compared to an alternative model with different representational assumptions. Experiment 1 confirmed the prediction that non-words and inverted words require longer prime durations to eliminate positive repetition priming (i.e., a slower transition from positive to negative priming). Experiment 2 confirmed the prediction that associative priming increases and then decreases with increasing prime duration, but remains positive even with long duration primes. Experiment 3 replicated the effects of repetition and associative priming using a within-subjects design and combined these effects by examining target words that were expected to repeat (e.g., viewing the target word 'BACK' after the prime phrase 'back to'). These results support the originally assumed representational hierarchy and more generally the role of habituation in temporal parsing and priming. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Influence of Vocabulary Size, Phonotactic Probability, and Wordlikeness on Nonword Repetitions of Children with and without Specific Language Impairment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Munson, Benjamin; Kurtz, Beth A.; Windsor, Jennifer

2005-01-01

Research has shown that children repeat high-probability phoneme sequences more accurately than low-probability ones. This effect attenuates with age, and its decrease is predicted by developmental changes in the size of the lexicon (J. Edwards, M. E. Beckman, & B. Munson, 2004; B. Munson, 2001; B. Munson, J. Edwards, & M. Beckman, 2005). This…

Subject-Verb Agreement and Verbal Short-Term Memory: A Perspective from Greek Children with Specific Language Impairment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lalioti, Marina; Stavrakaki, Stavroula; Manouilidou, Christina; Talli, Ioanna

2016-01-01

This study investigated the performance of school age Greek-speaking children with SLI on verbal short-term memory (VSTM) and Subject-Verb (S-V) agreement in comparison to chronological age controls and younger typically developing children. VSTM abilities were assessed by means of a non-word repetition task (NRT) and an elicited production task,…

Clinical Markers for Specific Language Impairment in Italian: The Contribution of Clitics and Non-Word Repetition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bortolini, Umberta; Arfe, Barbara; Caselli, Cristina M.; Degasperi, Luisa; Deevy, Patricia; Leonard, Laurence B.

2006-01-01

Background: The discovery of clinical markers for specific language impairment (SLI) in children can assist in the accurate identification of children with this disorder, and in a description of the disorder's phenotype for genetic study. One challenge to this type of research is the fact that languages vary in the most salient symptoms of SLI.…

The Influence of Phonotactic Probability on Nonword Repetition and Fast Mapping in 3-Year-Olds with a History of Expressive Language Delay

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

MacRoy-Higgins, Michelle; Dalton, Kevin Patrick

2015-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of phonotactic probability on sublexical (phonological) and lexical representations in 3-year-olds who had a history of being late talkers in comparison with their peers with typical language development. Method: Ten 3-year-olds who were late talkers and 10 age-matched typically…

Nonword repetition in children with cochlear implants: a potential clinical marker of poor language acquisition.

PubMed

Nittrouer, Susan; Caldwell-Tarr, Amanda; Sansom, Emily; Twersky, Jill; Lowenstein, Joanna H

2014-11-01

Cochlear implants (CIs) can facilitate the acquisition of spoken language for deaf children, but challenges remain. Language skills dependent on phonological sensitivity are most at risk for these children, so having an effective way to diagnose problems at this level would be of value for school speech-language pathologists. The goal of this study was to assess whether a nonword repetition (NWR) task could serve that purpose. Participants were 104 second graders: 49 with normal hearing (NH) and 55 with CIs. In addition to NWR, children were tested on 10 measures involving phonological awareness and processing, serial recall of words, vocabulary, reading, and grammar. Children with CIs performed more poorly than children with NH on NWR, and sensitivity to phonological structure alone explained that performance for children in both groups. For children with CIs, 2 audiological factors positively influenced outcomes on NWR: being identified with hearing loss at a younger age and having experience with wearing a hearing aid on the unimplanted ear at the time of receiving a 1st CI. NWR scores were better able to rule out than to rule in such language deficits. Well-designed NWR tasks could have clinical utility in assessments of language acquisition for school-age children with CIs.

[Children with specific language impairment: electrophysiological and pedaudiological findings].

PubMed

Rinker, T; Hartmann, K; Smith, E; Reiter, R; Alku, P; Kiefer, M; Brosch, S

2014-08-01

Auditory deficits may be at the core of the language delay in children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). It was therefore hypothesized that children with SLI perform poorly on 4 tests typically used to diagnose central auditory processing disorder (CAPD) as well in the processing of phonetic and tone stimuli in an electrophysiological experiment. 14 children with SLI (mean age 61,7 months) and 16 children without SLI (mean age 64,9 months) were tested with 4 tasks: non-word repetition, language discrimination in noise, directional hearing, and dichotic listening. The electrophysiological recording Mismatch Negativity (MMN) employed sine tones (600 vs. 650 Hz) and phonetic stimuli (/ε/ versus /e/). Control children and children with SLI differed significantly in the non-word repetition as well as in the dichotic listening task but not in the two other tasks. Only the control children recognized the frequency difference in the MMN-experiment. The phonetic difference was discriminated by both groups, however, effects were longer lasting for the control children. Group differences were not significant. Children with SLI show limitations in auditory processing that involve either a complex task repeating unfamiliar or difficult material and show subtle deficits in auditory processing at the neural level. © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.

Nonword repetition in children with cochlear implants: A potential clinical marker of poor language acquisition

PubMed Central

Nittrouer, Susan; Caldwell-Tarr, Amanda; Sansom, Emily; Twersky, Jill; Lowenstein, Joanna H.

2014-01-01

Purpose Cochlear implants (CIs) can facilitate the acquisition of spoken language for deaf children, but challenges remain. Language skills dependent upon phonological sensitivity are most at risk for these children, so having an effective way to diagnose problems at this level would be of value for school speech-language pathologists. The goal of this study was to assess whether a nonword repetition (NWR) task could serve that purpose. Method 104 second graders participated: 49 with NH and 55 with CIs. In addition to NWR, children were tested on ten measures involving phonological awareness/processing, serial recall of words, vocabulary, reading, and grammar. Results Children with CIs performed more poorly than children with NH on NWR, and sensitivity to phonological structure alone explained that performance for children in both groups. For children with CIs, two audiological factors positively influenced outcomes on NWR: being identified with hearing loss at younger ages and having experience wearing a hearing aid on the unimplanted ear at the time of receiving a first CI. NWR scores were better able to rule out language deficits than rule in such deficits. Conclusions Well-designed NWR tasks could have clinical utility in assessments of language acquisition for school-age children with CIs. PMID:25340675

How brand names are special: brands, words, and hemispheres.

PubMed

Gontijo, Possidonia F D; Rayman, Janice; Zhang, Shi; Zaidel, Eran

2002-09-01

Previous research has consistently shown differences between the processing of proper names and of common nouns, leading to the belief that proper names possess a special neuropsychological status. We investigate the category of brand names and suggest that brand names also have a special neuropsychological status, but one which is different from proper names. The findings suggest that the hemispheric lexical status of the brand names is mixed--they behave like words in some respects and like nonwords in others. Our study used familiar upper case brand names, common nouns, and two different types of nonwords ("weird" and "normal") differing in length, as stimuli in a lateralized lexical decision task (LDT). Common nouns, brand names, weird nonwords, and normal nonwords were recognized in that decreasing order of speed and accuracy. A right visual field (RVF) advantage was found for all four lexical types. Interestingly, brand names, similar to nonwords, were found to be less lateralized than common nouns, consistent with theories of category-specific lexical processing. Further, brand names were the only type of lexical items to show a capitalization effect: brand names were recognized faster when they were presented in upper case than in lower case. In addition, while string length affected the recognition of common nouns only in the left visual field (LVF) and the recognition of nonwords only in the RVF, brand names behaved like common nouns in exhibiting length effects only in the LVF. Copyright 2002 Elsevier Science (USA)

Words are not enough: nonword repetition as an indicator of arcuate fasciculus integrity during brain tumor resection.

PubMed

Sierpowska, Joanna; Gabarrós, Andreu; Fernandez-Coello, Alejandro; Camins, Àngels; Castañer, Sara; Juncadella, Montserrat; Morís, Joaquín; Rodríguez-Fornells, Antoni

2017-02-01

OBJECTIVE Subcortical electrical stimulation during brain surgery may allow localization of functionally crucial white matter fibers and thus tailoring of the tumor resection according to its functional limits. The arcuate fasciculus (AF) is a white matter bundle connecting frontal, temporal, and parietal cortical areas that is often disrupted by left brain lesions. It plays a critical role in several cognitive functions related to phonological processing, but current intraoperative monitoring methods do not yet allow mapping of this tract with sufficient precision. In the present study the authors aimed to test a new paradigm for the intraoperative monitoring of the AF. METHODS In this report, the authors studied 12 patients undergoing awake brain surgery for tumor resection with a related risk of AF damage. To preserve AF integrity and the cognitive processes sustained by this tract in the intraoperative context, the authors used real word repetition (WR) and nonword repetition (NWR) tasks as complements to standard picture naming. RESULTS Compared with the errors identified by WR or picture naming, the NWR task allowed the detection of subtle errors possibly related to AF alterations. Moreover, only 3 patients demonstrated phonological paraphasias in standard picture naming, and in 2 of these patients the paraphasias co-occurred with the total loss of WR and NWR ability. Before surgery, lesion volume predicted a patient's NWR performance. CONCLUSIONS The authors suggest that monitoring NWR intraoperatively may complement the standard naming tasks and could permit better preservation of the important language production functions subserved by the AF.

Lexicality and phonological similarity: a challenge for the retrieval-based account of serial recall?

PubMed

Fallon, Anthony B; Mak, Eva; Tehan, Gerald; Daly, Charmaine

2005-01-01

The retrieval-based account of serial recall (Saint-Aubin & Poirier, 2000) attributes lexicality, phonological similarity, and articulatory suppression effects to a process where long-term representations are used to reconstruct degraded phonological traces. Two experiments tested this assumption by manipulating these factors in the recall of four- and five-item lists of words and non-words. Lexicality enhanced item recall (IR), but only affected position accuracy (PA) for five-item lists under suppression. Phonological similarity influenced both words and non-words, and produced impaired PA in silent and suppressed conditions. Consistent with the retrieval-based account, words and non-words of high word-likeness appear subject to redintegration. However, some findings, like suppression not reducing the phonological similarity impairment in suppressed conditions, present challenges for the retrieval-based account and other models of serial recall.

Anatomic, clinical, and neuropsychological correlates of spelling errors in primary progressive aphasia.

PubMed

Shim, Hyungsub; Hurley, Robert S; Rogalski, Emily; Mesulam, M-Marsel

2012-07-01

This study evaluates spelling errors in the three subtypes of primary progressive aphasia (PPA): agrammatic (PPA-G), logopenic (PPA-L), and semantic (PPA-S). Forty-one PPA patients and 36 age-matched healthy controls were administered a test of spelling. The total number of errors and types of errors in spelling to dictation of regular words, exception words and nonwords, were recorded. Error types were classified based on phonetic plausibility. In the first analysis, scores were evaluated by clinical diagnosis. Errors in spelling exception words and phonetically plausible errors were seen in PPA-S. Conversely, PPA-G was associated with errors in nonword spelling and phonetically implausible errors. In the next analysis, spelling scores were correlated to other neuropsychological language test scores. Significant correlations were found between exception word spelling and measures of naming and single word comprehension. Nonword spelling correlated with tests of grammar and repetition. Global language measures did not correlate significantly with spelling scores, however. Cortical thickness analysis based on MRI showed that atrophy in several language regions of interest were correlated with spelling errors. Atrophy in the left supramarginal gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) pars orbitalis correlated with errors in nonword spelling, while thinning in the left temporal pole and fusiform gyrus correlated with errors in exception word spelling. Additionally, phonetically implausible errors in regular word spelling correlated with thinning in the left IFG pars triangularis and pars opercularis. Together, these findings suggest two independent systems for spelling to dictation, one phonetic (phoneme to grapheme conversion), and one lexical (whole word retrieval). Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Repetition priming across distinct contexts: effects of lexical status, word frequency, and retrieval test.

PubMed

Coane, Jennifer H; Balota, David A

2010-12-01

Repetition priming, the facilitation observed when a target is preceded by an identity prime, is a robust phenomenon that occurs across a variety of conditions. Oliphant (1983), however, failed to observe repetition priming for targets embedded in the instructions to an experiment in a subsequent lexical decision task. In the present experiments, we examined the roles of priming context (list or instructions), target lexicality, and target frequency in both lexical decision and episodic recognition performance. Initial encoding context did not modulate priming in lexical decision or recognition memory for low-frequency targets or nonwords, whereas context strongly modulated episodic recognition for high-frequency targets. The results indicate that priming across contexts is sensitive to the distinctiveness of the trace and the reliance on episodic retrieval mechanisms. These results also shed light on the influence of event boundaries, such that priming occurs across different events for relatively distinct (low-frequency) items.

Sentence imitation as a marker of SLI in Czech: disproportionate impairment of verbs and clitics.

PubMed

Smolík, Filip; Vávru, Petra

2014-06-01

The authors examined sentence imitation as a potential clinical marker of specific language impairment (SLI) in Czech and its use to identify grammatical markers of SLI. Children with SLI and the age- and language-matched control groups (total N = 57) were presented with a sentence imitation task, a receptive vocabulary task, and digit span and nonword repetition tasks. Sentence imitations were scored for accuracy and error types. A separate count of inaccuracies for individual part-of-speech categories was performed. Children with SLI had substantially more inaccurate imitations than the control groups. The differences in the memory measures could not account for the differences between children with SLI and the control groups in imitation accuracy, even though they accounted for the differences between the language-matched and age-matched control groups. The proportion of grammatical errors was larger in children with SLI than in the control groups. The categories that were most affected in imitations of children with SLI were verbs and clitics. Sentence imitation is a sensitive marker of SLI. Verbs and clitics are the most vulnerable categories in Czech SLI. The pattern of errors suggests that impaired syntactic representations are the most likely source of difficulties in children with SLI.

Cross-linguistic and cross-cultural effects on verbal working memory and vocabulary: testing language-minority children with an immigrant background.

PubMed

de Abreu, Pascale M J Engel; Baldassi, Martine; Puglisi, Marina L; Befi-Lopes, Debora M

2013-04-01

In this study, the authors explored the impact of test language and cultural status on vocabulary and working memory performance in multilingual language-minority children. Twenty 7-year-old Portuguese-speaking immigrant children living in Luxembourg completed several assessments of first (L1)- and second-language (L2) vocabulary (comprehension and production), executive-loaded working memory (counting recall and backward digit recall), and verbal short-term memory (digit recall and nonword repetition). Cross-linguistic task performance was compared within individuals. The language-minority children were also compared with multilingual language-majority children from Luxembourg and Portuguese-speaking monolinguals from Brazil without an immigrant background matched on age, sex, socioeconomic status, and nonverbal reasoning. Results showed that (a) verbal working memory measures involving numerical memoranda were relatively independent of test language and cultural status; (b) language status had an impact on the repetition of high- but not on low-wordlike L2 nonwords; (c) large cross-linguistic and cross-cultural effects emerged for productive vocabulary; (d) cross-cultural effects were less pronounced for vocabulary comprehension with no differences between groups if only L1 words relevant to the home context were considered. The study indicates that linguistic and cognitive assessments for language-minority children require careful choice among measures to ensure valid results. Implications for testing culturally and linguistically diverse children are discussed.

Speed and accuracy of dyslexic versus typical word recognition: an eye-movement investigation

PubMed Central

Kunert, Richard; Scheepers, Christoph

2014-01-01

Developmental dyslexia is often characterized by a dual deficit in both word recognition accuracy and general processing speed. While previous research into dyslexic word recognition may have suffered from speed-accuracy trade-off, the present study employed a novel eye-tracking task that is less prone to such confounds. Participants (10 dyslexics and 12 controls) were asked to look at real word stimuli, and to ignore simultaneously presented non-word stimuli, while their eye-movements were recorded. Improvements in word recognition accuracy over time were modeled in terms of a continuous non-linear function. The words' rhyme consistency and the non-words' lexicality (unpronounceable, pronounceable, pseudohomophone) were manipulated within-subjects. Speed-related measures derived from the model fits confirmed generally slower processing in dyslexics, and showed a rhyme consistency effect in both dyslexics and controls. In terms of overall error rate, dyslexics (but not controls) performed less accurately on rhyme-inconsistent words, suggesting a representational deficit for such words in dyslexics. Interestingly, neither group showed a pseudohomophone effect in speed or accuracy, which might call the task-independent pervasiveness of this effect into question. The present results illustrate the importance of distinguishing between speed- vs. accuracy-related effects for our understanding of dyslexic word recognition. PMID:25346708

Assessing the Relationship between Prosody and Reading Outcomes in Children Using the PEPS-C

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lochrin, Margaret; Arciuli, Joanne; Sharma, Mridula

2015-01-01

This study investigated the relationship between both receptive and expressive prosody and each of three reading outcomes: accuracy of reading aloud words, accuracy of reading aloud nonwords, and comprehension. Participants were 63 children aged 7 to 12 years. To assess prosody, we used the Profiling Elements of Prosody in Speech Communication…

A common neural substrate for language production and verbal working memory.

PubMed

Acheson, Daniel J; Hamidi, Massihullah; Binder, Jeffrey R; Postle, Bradley R

2011-06-01

Verbal working memory (VWM), the ability to maintain and manipulate representations of speech sounds over short periods, is held by some influential models to be independent from the systems responsible for language production and comprehension [e.g., Baddeley, A. D. Working memory, thought, and action. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2007]. We explore the alternative hypothesis that maintenance in VWM is subserved by temporary activation of the language production system [Acheson, D. J., & MacDonald, M. C. Verbal working memory and language production: Common approaches to the serial ordering of verbal information. Psychological Bulletin, 135, 50-68, 2009b]. Specifically, we hypothesized that for stimuli lacking a semantic representation (e.g., nonwords such as mun), maintenance in VWM can be achieved by cycling information back and forth between the stages of phonological encoding and articulatory planning. First, fMRI was used to identify regions associated with two different stages of language production planning: the posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTG) for phonological encoding (critical for VWM of nonwords) and the middle temporal gyrus (MTG) for lexical-semantic retrieval (not critical for VWM of nonwords). Next, in the same subjects, these regions were targeted with repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) during language production and VWM task performance. Results showed that rTMS to the pSTG, but not the MTG, increased error rates on paced reading (a language production task) and on delayed serial recall of nonwords (a test of VWM). Performance on a lexical-semantic retrieval task (picture naming), in contrast, was significantly sensitive to rTMS of the MTG. Because rTMS was guided by language production-related activity, these results provide the first causal evidence that maintenance in VWM directly depends on the long-term representations and processes used in speech production.

The role of low-spatial frequencies in lexical decision and masked priming.

PubMed

Boden, C; Giaschi, D

2009-04-01

Spatial frequency filtering was used to test the hypotheses that low-spatial frequency information in printed text can: (1) lead to a rapid lexical decision or (2) facilitate word recognition. Adult proficient readers made lexical decisions in unprimed and masked repetition priming experiments with unfiltered, low-pass, high-pass and notch filtered letter strings. In the unprimed experiments, a filtered target was presented for 105 or 400 ms followed by a pattern mask. Sensitivity (d') was lowest for the low-pass filtered targets at both durations with a bias towards a 'non-word' response. Sensitivity was higher in the high-pass and notch filter conditions. In the priming experiments, a forward mask was followed by a filtered prime then an unfiltered target. Primed words, but not non-words, were identified faster than unprimed words in both the low-pass and high-pass filtered conditions. These results do not support a unique role for low-spatial frequency information in either facilitating or making rapid lexical decisions.

Identifying language impairment in bilingual children in France and in Germany.

PubMed

Tuller, Laurice; Hamann, Cornelia; Chilla, Solveig; Ferré, Sandrine; Morin, Eléonore; Prevost, Philippe; Dos Santos, Christophe; Abed Ibrahim, Lina; Zebib, Racha

2018-05-23

The detection of specific language impairment (SLI) in children growing up bilingually presents particular challenges for clinicians. Non-word repetition (NWR) and sentence repetition (SR) tasks have proven to be the most accurate diagnostic tools for monolingual populations, raising the question of the extent of their usefulness in different bilingual populations. To determine the diagnostic accuracy of NWR and SR tasks that incorporate phonological/syntactic complexity as discussed in recent linguistic theory. The tasks were developed as part of the Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings (LITMUS) toolkit, in two different national settings, France and Germany, and investigated children with three different home languages: Arabic, Portuguese and Turkish. NWR and SR tasks developed in parallel were administered to 151 bilingual children, aged 5;6-8;11, in France and in Germany, to 64 children in speech-language therapy (SLT) and to 87 children not in SLT, whose first language (L1) was Arabic, Portuguese or Turkish. Children were also administered standardized language tests in each of their languages to determine likely clinical status (typical development (TD) or SLI), and parents responded to a questionnaire including questions about early and current language use (bilingualism factors) and early language development (risk factors for SLI). Monolingual controls included 47 TD children and 29 children with SLI. Results were subjected to inter-group comparisons, to diagnostic accuracy calculation, and to correlation and multiple regression analyses. In accordance with previous studies, NWR and SR identified SLI in the monolingual children, yielding good to excellent diagnostic accuracy. Diagnostic accuracy in bilingual children was fair to good, generally distinguishing children likely to have SLI from children likely to have TD. Accuracy was necessarily linked to the determination of clinical status, which was based on standardized assessment in each of the child's languages. Positive early development, a composite risk factor for SLI, and not variables related to language exposure and use, generally emerged as the strongest predictor of performance on the two tasks, constituting additional, independent support for the efficacy of NWR and SR in identifying impairment in bilingual children. NWR and SR tasks informed by linguistic theory are appropriate for use as part of the diagnostic process for identifying language impairment in bilingual children for whom the language of assessment is different from the home language, in diverse sociolinguistic contexts. © 2018 Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.

Semantic and phonological contributions to short-term repetition and long-term cued sentence recall.

PubMed

Meltzer, Jed A; Rose, Nathan S; Deschamps, Tiffany; Leigh, Rosie C; Panamsky, Lilia; Silberberg, Alexandra; Madani, Noushin; Links, Kira A

2016-02-01

The function of verbal short-term memory is supported not only by the phonological loop, but also by semantic resources that may operate on both short and long time scales. Elucidation of the neural underpinnings of these mechanisms requires effective behavioral manipulations that can selectively engage them. We developed a novel cued sentence recall paradigm to assess the effects of two factors on sentence recall accuracy at short-term and long-term stages. Participants initially repeated auditory sentences immediately following a 14-s retention period. After this task was complete, long-term memory for each sentence was probed by a two-word recall cue. The sentences were either concrete (high imageability) or abstract (low imageability), and the initial 14-s retention period was filled with either an undemanding finger-tapping task or a more engaging articulatory suppression task (Exp. 1, counting backward by threes; Exp. 2, repeating a four-syllable nonword). Recall was always better for the concrete sentences. Articulatory suppression reduced accuracy in short-term recall, especially for abstract sentences, but the sentences initially recalled following articulatory suppression were retained better at the subsequent cued-recall test, suggesting that the engagement of semantic mechanisms for short-term retention promoted encoding of the sentence meaning into long-term memory. These results provide a basis for using sentence imageability and subsequent memory performance as probes of semantic engagement in short-term memory for sentences.

Factors affecting articulation skills in children with velocardiofacial syndrome and children with cleft palate or velopharyngeal dysfunction: A preliminary report

PubMed Central

Baylis, Adriane L.; Munson, Benjamin; Moller, Karlind T.

2010-01-01

Objective To examine the influence of speech perception, cognition, and implicit phonological learning on articulation skills of children with Velocardiofacial syndrome (VCFS) and children with cleft palate or velopharyngeal dysfunction (VPD). Design Cross-sectional group experimental design. Participants 8 children with VCFS and 5 children with non-syndromic cleft palate or VPD. Methods and Measures All children participated in a phonetic inventory task, speech perception task, implicit priming nonword repetition task, conversational sample, nonverbal intelligence test, and hearing screening. Speech tasks were scored for percentage of phonemes correctly produced. Group differences and relations among measures were examined using nonparametric statistics. Results Children in the VCFS group demonstrated significantly poorer articulation skills and lower standard scores of nonverbal intelligence compared to the children with cleft palate or VPD. There were no significant group differences in speech perception skills. For the implicit priming task, both groups of children were more accurate in producing primed nonwords than unprimed nonwords. Nonverbal intelligence and severity of velopharyngeal inadequacy for speech were correlated with articulation skills. Conclusions In this study, children with VCFS had poorer articulation skills compared to children with cleft palate or VPD. Articulation difficulties seen in the children with VCFS did not appear to be associated with speech perception skills or the ability to learn new phonological representations. Future research should continue to examine relationships between articulation, cognition, and velopharyngeal dysfunction in a larger sample of children with cleft palate and VCFS. PMID:18333642

The roles of family history of dyslexia, language, speech production and phonological processing in predicting literacy progress.

PubMed

Carroll, Julia M; Mundy, Ian R; Cunningham, Anna J

2014-09-01

It is well established that speech, language and phonological skills are closely associated with literacy, and that children with a family risk of dyslexia (FRD) tend to show deficits in each of these areas in the preschool years. This paper examines what the relationships are between FRD and these skills, and whether deficits in speech, language and phonological processing fully account for the increased risk of dyslexia in children with FRD. One hundred and fifty-three 4-6-year-old children, 44 of whom had FRD, completed a battery of speech, language, phonology and literacy tasks. Word reading and spelling were retested 6 months later, and text reading accuracy and reading comprehension were tested 3 years later. The children with FRD were at increased risk of developing difficulties in reading accuracy, but not reading comprehension. Four groups were compared: good and poor readers with and without FRD. In most cases good readers outperformed poor readers regardless of family history, but there was an effect of family history on naming and nonword repetition regardless of literacy outcome, suggesting a role for speech production skills as an endophenotype of dyslexia. Phonological processing predicted spelling, while language predicted text reading accuracy and comprehension. FRD was a significant additional predictor of reading and spelling after controlling for speech production, language and phonological processing, suggesting that children with FRD show additional difficulties in literacy that cannot be fully explained in terms of their language and phonological skills. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Won't get fooled again: An event-related potential study of task and repetition effects on the semantic processing of items without semantics.

PubMed

Laszlo, Sarah; Stites, Mallory; Federmeier, Kara D

2012-01-01

A growing body of evidence suggests that semantic access is obligatory. Several studies have demonstrated that brain activity associated with semantic processing, measured in the N400 component of the event-related brain potential (ERP), is elicited even by meaningless, orthographically illegal strings, suggesting that semantic access is not gated by lexicality. However, the downstream consequences of that activity vary by item type, exemplified by the typical finding that N400 activity is reduced by repetition for words and pronounceable nonwords but not for illegal strings. We propose that this lack of repetition effect for illegal strings is caused not by lack of contact with semantics, but by the unrefined nature of that contact under conditions in which illegal strings can be readily categorised as task-irrelevant. To test this, we collected ERPs from participants performing a modified Lexical Decision Task, in which the presence of orthographically illegal acronyms rendered meaningless illegal strings more difficult lures than normal. Confirming our hypothesis, under these conditions illegal strings elicited robust N400 repetition effects, quantitatively and qualitatively similar to those elicited by words, pseudowords, and acronyms.

English as a Foreign Language in Bilingual Language-minority Children, Children with Dyslexia and Monolingual Typical Readers.

PubMed

Bonifacci, Paola; Canducci, Elisa; Gravagna, Giulia; Palladino, Paola

2017-05-01

The present study was aimed at investigating literacy skills in English as a foreign language in three different groups of children: monolinguals with dyslexia (n = 19), typically developing bilinguals (language-minority) (n = 19) and a control group of monolinguals (Italian) (n = 76). Bilinguals were not expected to fail in English measures, and their gap with monolinguals would be expected to be limited to the instructional language, owing to underexposure. All participants were enrolled in Italian primary schools (fourth and fifth grades). A non-verbal reasoning task and Italian and English literacy tasks were administered. The Italian battery included word and non-word reading (speed and accuracy), word and non-word writing, and reading comprehension; the English battery included similar tasks, except for the non-word writing. Bilingual children performed similarly to typical readers in English tasks, whereas in Italian tasks, their performance was similar to that of typical readers in reading speed but not in reading accuracy and writing. Children with dyslexia underperformed compared with typically developing children in all English and Italian tasks, except for reading comprehension in Italian. Profile analysis and correlational analyses were further discussed. These results suggest that English as a foreign language might represent a challenge for students with dyslexia but a strength for bilingual language-minority children. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

SKOOL versus ZOOL: effects of orthographic and phonological long-term memory on nonword immediate serial recall.

PubMed

Tree, Jeremy J; Longmore, Chris; Majerus, Steve; Evans, Nicky

2011-07-01

In a now-classic study Besner and Davelaar (1982) reported an advantage of pseudohomophone (PSH) over nonword recall in a visual immediate serial recall (ISR) task, which remained under articulatory suppression (AS), and interpreted the findings as indicating PSH items obtain support from stored phonological long-term memory (LTM) representations even when phonological rehearsal is disrupted. However, one key question relating to this PSH effect remains: could the results have been contaminated by a potential confound of orthographic familiarity (i.e., PSH items often look like the word they sound like)? As a result, the present study examined the impact of orthography on PSH ISR. Our findings indicate that PSH accuracy was consistently higher for items that had an orthographic similarity to the parent word, and this effect did not interact with concurrent task. We therefore argue that PSH items in ISR obtain independent support from both orthographic and phonological LTM representations. The present study demonstrates the critical impact of orthographic LTM representations on visual nonword ISR, and we suggest that this may be a fruitful avenue for further research.

Vocabulary learning in primary school children: working memory and long-term memory components.

PubMed

Morra, Sergio; Camba, Roberta

2009-10-01

The goal of this study was to investigate which working memory and long-term memory components predict vocabulary learning. We used a nonword learning paradigm in which 8- to 10-year-olds learned picture-nonword pairs. The nonwords varied in length (two vs. four syllables) and phonology (native sounding vs. including one Russian phoneme). Short, phonologically native nonwords were learned best, whereas learning long nonwords leveled off after a few presentation cycles. Linear structural equation analyses showed an influence of three constructs-phonological sensitivity, vocabulary knowledge, and central attentional resources (M capacity)-on nonword learning, but the extent of their contributions depended on specific characteristics of the nonwords to be learned. Phonological sensitivity predicted learning of all nonword types except short native nonwords, vocabulary predicted learning of only short native nonwords, and M capacity predicted learning of short nonwords but not long nonwords. The discussion considers three learning processes-effortful activation of phonological representations, lexical mediation, and passive associative learning-that use different cognitive resources and could be involved in learning different nonword types.

Neighbourhood Density Effects in Auditory Non-Word Processing in Aphasic Listeners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Janse, Esther

2009-01-01

This study investigates neighbourhood density effects on lexical decision performance (both accuracy and response times) of aphasic patients. Given earlier results on lexical activation and deactivation in Broca's and Wernicke's aphasia, the prediction was that smaller neighbourhood density effects would be found for Broca's aphasic patients,…

Sources of Interference in Recognition Testing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Annis, Jeffrey; Malmberg, Kenneth J.; Criss, Amy H.; Shiffrin, Richard M.

2013-01-01

Recognition memory accuracy is harmed by prior testing (a.k.a., output interference [OI]; Tulving & Arbuckle, 1966). In several experiments, we interpolated various tasks between recognition test trials. The stimuli and the tasks were more similar (lexical decision [LD] of words and nonwords) or less similar (gender identification of male and…

Interdependence of linguistic and indexical speech perception skills in school-age children with early cochlear implantation.

PubMed

Geers, Ann E; Davidson, Lisa S; Uchanski, Rosalie M; Nicholas, Johanna G

2013-09-01

This study documented the ability of experienced pediatric cochlear implant (CI) users to perceive linguistic properties (what is said) and indexical attributes (emotional intent and talker identity) of speech, and examined the extent to which linguistic (LSP) and indexical (ISP) perception skills are related. Preimplant-aided hearing, age at implantation, speech processor technology, CI-aided thresholds, sequential bilateral cochlear implantation, and academic integration with hearing age-mates were examined for their possible relationships to both LSP and ISP skills. Sixty 9- to 12-year olds, first implanted at an early age (12 to 38 months), participated in a comprehensive test battery that included the following LSP skills: (1) recognition of monosyllabic words at loud and soft levels, (2) repetition of phonemes and suprasegmental features from nonwords, and (3) recognition of key words from sentences presented within a noise background, and the following ISP skills: (1) discrimination of across-gender and within-gender (female) talkers and (2) identification and discrimination of emotional content from spoken sentences. A group of 30 age-matched children without hearing loss completed the nonword repetition, and talker- and emotion-perception tasks for comparison. Word-recognition scores decreased with signal level from a mean of 77% correct at 70 dB SPL to 52% at 50 dB SPL. On average, CI users recognized 50% of key words presented in sentences that were 9.8 dB above background noise. Phonetic properties were repeated from nonword stimuli at about the same level of accuracy as suprasegmental attributes (70 and 75%, respectively). The majority of CI users identified emotional content and differentiated talkers significantly above chance levels. Scores on LSP and ISP measures were combined into separate principal component scores and these components were highly correlated (r = 0.76). Both LSP and ISP component scores were higher for children who received a CI at the youngest ages, upgraded to more recent CI technology and had lower CI-aided thresholds. Higher scores, for both LSP and ISP components, were also associated with higher language levels and mainstreaming at younger ages. Higher ISP scores were associated with better social skills. Results strongly support a link between indexical and linguistic properties in perceptual analysis of speech. These two channels of information appear to be processed together in parallel by the auditory system and are inseparable in perception. Better speech performance, for both linguistic and indexical perception, is associated with younger age at implantation and use of more recent speech processor technology. Children with better speech perception demonstrated better spoken language, earlier academic mainstreaming, and placement in more typically sized classrooms (i.e., >20 students). Well-developed social skills were more highly associated with the ability to discriminate the nuances of talker identity and emotion than with the ability to recognize words and sentences through listening. The extent to which early cochlear implantation enabled these early-implanted children to make use of both linguistic and indexical properties of speech influenced not only their development of spoken language, but also their ability to function successfully in a hearing world.

Interdependence of Linguistic and Indexical Speech Perception Skills in School-Aged Children with Early Cochlear Implantation

PubMed Central

Geers, Ann; Davidson, Lisa; Uchanski, Rosalie; Nicholas, Johanna

2013-01-01

Objectives This study documented the ability of experienced pediatric cochlear implant (CI) users to perceive linguistic properties (what is said) and indexical attributes (emotional intent and talker identity) of speech, and examined the extent to which linguistic (LSP) and indexical (ISP) perception skills are related. Pre-implant aided hearing, age at implantation, speech processor technology, CI-aided thresholds, sequential bilateral cochlear implantation, and academic integration with hearing age-mates were examined for their possible relationships to both LSP and ISP skills. Design Sixty 9–12 year olds, first implanted at an early age (12–38 months), participated in a comprehensive test battery that included the following LSP skills: 1) recognition of monosyllabic words at loud and soft levels, 2) repetition of phonemes and suprasegmental features from non-words, and 3) recognition of keywords from sentences presented within a noise background, and the following ISP skills: 1) discrimination of male from female and female from female talkers and 2) identification and discrimination of emotional content from spoken sentences. A group of 30 age-matched children without hearing loss completed the non-word repetition, and talker- and emotion-perception tasks for comparison. Results Word recognition scores decreased with signal level from a mean of 77% correct at 70 dB SPL to 52% at 50 dB SPL. On average, CI users recognized 50% of keywords presented in sentences that were 9.8 dB above background noise. Phonetic properties were repeated from non-word stimuli at about the same level of accuracy as suprasegmental attributes (70% and 75%, respectively). The majority of CI users identified emotional content and differentiated talkers significantly above chance levels. Scores on LSP and ISP measures were combined into separate principal component scores and these components were highly correlated (r = .76). Both LSP and ISP component scores were higher for children who received a CI at the youngest ages, upgraded to more recent CI technology and had lower CI-aided thresholds. Higher scores, for both LSP and ISP components, were also associated with higher language levels and mainstreaming at younger ages. Higher ISP scores were associated with better social skills. Conclusions Results strongly support a link between indexical and linguistic properties in perceptual analysis of speech. These two channels of information appear to be processed together in parallel by the auditory system and are inseparable in perception. Better speech performance, for both linguistic and indexical perception, is associated with younger age at implantation and use of more recent speech processor technology. Children with better speech perception demonstrated better spoken language, earlier academic mainstreaming, and placement in more typically-sized classrooms (i.e., >20 students). Well-developed social skills were more highly associated with the ability to discriminate the nuances of talker identity and emotion than with the ability to recognize words and sentences through listening. The extent to which early cochlear implantation enabled these early-implanted children to make use of both linguistic and indexical properties of speech influenced not only their development of spoken language, but also their ability to function successfully in a hearing world. PMID:23652814

High Frequency rTMS over the Left Parietal Lobule Increases Non-Word Reading Accuracy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Costanzo, Floriana; Menghini, Deny; Caltagirone, Carlo; Oliveri, Massimiliano; Vicari, Stefano

2012-01-01

Increasing evidence in the literature supports the usefulness of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) in studying reading processes. Two brain regions are primarily involved in phonological decoding: the left superior temporal gyrus (STG), which is associated with the auditory representation of spoken words, and the left inferior parietal lobe…

Learning New Words Affects Nonword Pronunciation in Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Khanna, Maya M.; Cortese, Michael J.; Birchwood, Katharine S.

2010-01-01

In two experiments we examined how children's nonword pronunciations are influenced by learning words. In Experiment 1, children pronounced nonwords before and after learning words sharing orthographic rimes with the nonwords. These rimes varied in spelling-to-sound consistency and regularity. Children's nonword pronunciations were more sensitive…

Keeping it together: Semantic coherence stabilizes phonological sequences in short-term memory.

PubMed

Savill, Nicola; Ellis, Rachel; Brooke, Emma; Koa, Tiffany; Ferguson, Suzie; Rojas-Rodriguez, Elena; Arnold, Dominic; Smallwood, Jonathan; Jefferies, Elizabeth

2018-04-01

Our ability to hold a sequence of speech sounds in mind, in the correct configuration, supports many aspects of communication, but the contribution of conceptual information to this basic phonological capacity remains controversial. Previous research has shown modest and inconsistent benefits of meaning on phonological stability in short-term memory, but these studies were based on sets of unrelated words. Using a novel design, we examined the immediate recall of sentence-like sequences with coherent meaning, alongside both standard word lists and mixed lists containing words and nonwords. We found, and replicated, substantial effects of coherent meaning on phoneme-level accuracy: The phonemes of both words and nonwords within conceptually coherent sequences were more likely to be produced together and in the correct order. Since nonwords do not exist as items in long-term memory, the semantic enhancement of phoneme-level recall for both item types cannot be explained by a lexically based item reconstruction process employed at the point of retrieval ("redintegration"). Instead, our data show, for naturalistic input, that when meaning emerges from the combination of words, the phonological traces that support language are reinforced by a semantic-binding process that has been largely overlooked by past short-term memory research.

Coordination of Word Recognition and Oculomotor Control During Reading: The Role of Implicit Lexical Decisions

PubMed Central

Choi, Wonil; Gordon, Peter C.

2013-01-01

The coordination of word-recognition and oculomotor processes during reading was evaluated in two eye-tracking experiments that examined how word skipping, where a word is not fixated during first-pass reading, is affected by the lexical status of a letter string in the parafovea and ease of recognizing that string. Ease of lexical recognition was manipulated through target-word frequency (Experiment 1) and through repetition priming between prime-target pairs embedded in a sentence (Experiment 2). Using the gaze-contingent boundary technique the target word appeared in the parafovea either with full preview or with transposed-letter (TL) preview. The TL preview strings were nonwords in Experiment 1 (e.g., bilnk created from the target blink), but were words in Experiment 2 (e.g., sacred created from the target scared). Experiment 1 showed greater skipping for high-frequency than low-frequency target words in the full preview condition but not in the TL preview (nonword) condition. Experiment 2 showed greater skipping for target words that repeated an earlier prime word than for those that did not, with this repetition priming occurring both with preview of the full target and with preview of the target’s TL neighbor word. However, time to progress from the word after the target was greater following skips of the TL preview word, whose meaning was anomalous in the sentence context, than following skips of the full preview word whose meaning fit sensibly into the sentence context. Together, the results support the idea that coordination between word-recognition and oculomotor processes occurs at the level of implicit lexical decisions. PMID:23106372

Why computational models are better than verbal theories: the case of nonword repetition.

PubMed

Jones, Gary; Gobet, Fernand; Freudenthal, Daniel; Watson, Sarah E; Pine, Julian M

2014-03-01

Tests of nonword repetition (NWR) have often been used to examine children's phonological knowledge and word learning abilities. However, theories of NWR primarily explain performance either in terms of phonological working memory or long-term knowledge, with little consideration of how these processes interact. One theoretical account that focuses specifically on the interaction between short-term and long-term memory is the chunking hypothesis. Chunking occurs because of repeated exposure to meaningful stimulus items, resulting in the items becoming grouped (or chunked); once chunked, the items can be represented in short-term memory using one chunk rather than one chunk per item. We tested several predictions of the chunking hypothesis by presenting 5-6-year-old children with three tests of NWR that were either high, medium, or low in wordlikeness. The results did not show strong support for the chunking hypothesis, suggesting that chunking fails to fully explain children's NWR behavior. However, simulations using a computational implementation of chunking (namely CLASSIC, or Chunking Lexical And Sub-lexical Sequences In Children) show that, when the linguistic input to 5-6-year-old children is estimated in a reasonable way, the children's data are matched across all three NWR tests. These results have three implications for the field: (a) a chunking account can explain key NWR phenomena in 5-6-year-old children; (b) tests of chunking accounts require a detailed specification both of the chunking mechanism itself and of the input on which the chunking mechanism operates; and (c) verbal theories emphasizing the role of long-term knowledge (such as chunking) are not precise enough to make detailed predictions about experimental data, but computational implementations of the theories can bridge the gap. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Pushing typists back on the learning curve: Memory chunking improves retrieval of prior typing episodes.

PubMed

Yamaguchi, Motonori; Randle, James M; Wilson, Thomas L; Logan, Gordon D

2017-09-01

Hierarchical control of skilled performance depends on chunking of several lower-level units into a single higher-level unit. The present study examined the relationship between chunking and recognition of trained materials in the context of typewriting. In 3 experiments, participants were trained with typing nonwords and were later tested on their recognition of the trained materials. In Experiment 1, participants typed the same words or nonwords in 5 consecutive trials while performing a concurrent memory task. In Experiment 2, participants typed the materials with lags between repetitions without a concurrent memory task. In both experiments, recognition of typing materials was associated with better chunking of the materials. Experiment 3 used the remember-know procedure to test the recollection and familiarity components of recognition. Remember judgments were associated with better chunking than know judgments or nonrecognition. These results indicate that chunking is associated with explicit recollection of prior typing episodes. The relevance of the existing memory models to chunking in typewriting was considered, and it is proposed that memory chunking improves retrieval of trained typing materials by integrating contextual cues into the memory traces. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Repeating with the right hemisphere: reduced interactions between phonological and lexical-semantic systems in crossed aphasia?

PubMed Central

De-Torres, Irene; Dávila, Guadalupe; Berthier, Marcelo L.; Walsh, Seán Froudist; Moreno-Torres, Ignacio; Ruiz-Cruces, Rafael

2013-01-01

Knowledge on the patterns of repetition amongst individuals who develop language deficits in association with right hemisphere lesions (crossed aphasia) is very limited. Available data indicate that repetition in some crossed aphasics experiencing phonological processing deficits is not heavily influenced by lexical-semantic variables (lexicality, imageability, and frequency) as is regularly reported in phonologically-impaired cases with left hemisphere damage. Moreover, in view of the fact that crossed aphasia is rare, information on the role of right cortical areas and white matter tracts underpinning language repetition deficits is scarce. In this study, repetition performance was assessed in two patients with crossed conduction aphasia and striatal/capsular vascular lesions encompassing the right arcuate fasciculus (AF) and inferior frontal-occipital fasciculus (IFOF), the temporal stem and the white matter underneath the supramarginal gyrus. Both patients showed lexicality effects repeating better words than non-words, but manipulation of other lexical-semantic variables exerted less influence on repetition performance. Imageability and frequency effects, production of meaning-based paraphrases during sentence repetition, or better performance on repeating novel sentences than overlearned clichés were hardly ever observed in these two patients. In one patient, diffusion tensor imaging disclosed damage to the right long direct segment of the AF and IFOF with relative sparing of the anterior indirect and posterior segments of the AF, together with fully developed left perisylvian white matter pathways. These findings suggest that striatal/capsular lesions extending into the right AF and IFOF in some individuals with right hemisphere language dominance are associated with atypical repetition patterns which might reflect reduced interactions between phonological and lexical-semantic processes. PMID:24151460

Interactive Book Reading to Accelerate Word Learning by Kindergarten Children With Specific Language Impairment: Identifying an Adequate Intensity and Variation in Treatment Response.

PubMed

Storkel, Holly L; Voelmle, Krista; Fierro, Veronica; Flake, Kelsey; Fleming, Kandace K; Romine, Rebecca Swinburne

2017-01-01

This study sought to identify an adequate intensity of interactive book reading for new word learning by children with specific language impairment (SLI) and to examine variability in treatment response. An escalation design adapted from nontoxic drug trials (Hunsberger, Rubinstein, Dancey, & Korn, 2005) was used in this Phase I/II preliminary clinical trial. A total of 27 kindergarten children with SLI were randomized to 1 of 4 intensities of interactive book reading: 12, 24, 36, or 48 exposures. Word learning was monitored through a definition task and a naming task. An intensity response curve was examined to identify the adequate intensity. Correlations and classification accuracy were used to examine variation in response to treatment relative to pretreatment and early treatment measures. Response to treatment improved as intensity increased from 12 to 24 to 36 exposures, and then no further improvements were observed as intensity increased to 48 exposures. There was variability in treatment response: Children with poor phonological awareness, low vocabulary, and/or poor nonword repetition were less likely to respond to treatment. The adequate intensity for this version of interactive book reading was 36 exposures, but further development of the treatment is needed to increase the benefit for children with SLI.

Speech Recognition in Adults With Cochlear Implants: The Effects of Working Memory, Phonological Sensitivity, and Aging.

PubMed

Moberly, Aaron C; Harris, Michael S; Boyce, Lauren; Nittrouer, Susan

2017-04-14

Models of speech recognition suggest that "top-down" linguistic and cognitive functions, such as use of phonotactic constraints and working memory, facilitate recognition under conditions of degradation, such as in noise. The question addressed in this study was what happens to these functions when a listener who has experienced years of hearing loss obtains a cochlear implant. Thirty adults with cochlear implants and 30 age-matched controls with age-normal hearing underwent testing of verbal working memory using digit span and serial recall of words. Phonological capacities were assessed using a lexical decision task and nonword repetition. Recognition of words in sentences in speech-shaped noise was measured. Implant users had only slightly poorer working memory accuracy than did controls and only on serial recall of words; however, phonological sensitivity was highly impaired. Working memory did not facilitate speech recognition in noise for either group. Phonological sensitivity predicted sentence recognition for implant users but not for listeners with normal hearing. Clinical speech recognition outcomes for adult implant users relate to the ability of these users to process phonological information. Results suggest that phonological capacities may serve as potential clinical targets through rehabilitative training. Such novel interventions may be particularly helpful for older adult implant users.

Speech Recognition in Adults With Cochlear Implants: The Effects of Working Memory, Phonological Sensitivity, and Aging

PubMed Central

Harris, Michael S.; Boyce, Lauren; Nittrouer, Susan

2017-01-01

Purpose Models of speech recognition suggest that “top-down” linguistic and cognitive functions, such as use of phonotactic constraints and working memory, facilitate recognition under conditions of degradation, such as in noise. The question addressed in this study was what happens to these functions when a listener who has experienced years of hearing loss obtains a cochlear implant. Method Thirty adults with cochlear implants and 30 age-matched controls with age-normal hearing underwent testing of verbal working memory using digit span and serial recall of words. Phonological capacities were assessed using a lexical decision task and nonword repetition. Recognition of words in sentences in speech-shaped noise was measured. Results Implant users had only slightly poorer working memory accuracy than did controls and only on serial recall of words; however, phonological sensitivity was highly impaired. Working memory did not facilitate speech recognition in noise for either group. Phonological sensitivity predicted sentence recognition for implant users but not for listeners with normal hearing. Conclusion Clinical speech recognition outcomes for adult implant users relate to the ability of these users to process phonological information. Results suggest that phonological capacities may serve as potential clinical targets through rehabilitative training. Such novel interventions may be particularly helpful for older adult implant users. PMID:28384805

Interactive Book Reading to Accelerate Word Learning by Kindergarten Children With Specific Language Impairment: Identifying an Adequate Intensity and Variation in Treatment Response

PubMed Central

Voelmle, Krista; Fierro, Veronica; Flake, Kelsey; Fleming, Kandace K.; Romine, Rebecca Swinburne

2017-01-01

Purpose This study sought to identify an adequate intensity of interactive book reading for new word learning by children with specific language impairment (SLI) and to examine variability in treatment response. Method An escalation design adapted from nontoxic drug trials (Hunsberger, Rubinstein, Dancey, & Korn, 2005) was used in this Phase I/II preliminary clinical trial. A total of 27 kindergarten children with SLI were randomized to 1 of 4 intensities of interactive book reading: 12, 24, 36, or 48 exposures. Word learning was monitored through a definition task and a naming task. An intensity response curve was examined to identify the adequate intensity. Correlations and classification accuracy were used to examine variation in response to treatment relative to pretreatment and early treatment measures. Results Response to treatment improved as intensity increased from 12 to 24 to 36 exposures, and then no further improvements were observed as intensity increased to 48 exposures. There was variability in treatment response: Children with poor phonological awareness, low vocabulary, and/or poor nonword repetition were less likely to respond to treatment. Conclusion The adequate intensity for this version of interactive book reading was 36 exposures, but further development of the treatment is needed to increase the benefit for children with SLI. PMID:28036410

Oral and Hand Movement Speeds are Associated with Expressive Language Ability in Children with Speech Sound Disorder

PubMed Central

Peter, Beate

2013-01-01

This study tested the hypothesis that children with speech sound disorder have generalized slowed motor speeds. It evaluated associations among oral and hand motor speeds and measures of speech (articulation and phonology) and language (receptive vocabulary, sentence comprehension, sentence imitation), in 11 children with moderate to severe SSD and 11 controls. Syllable durations from a syllable repetition task served as an estimate of maximal oral movement speed. In two imitation tasks, nonwords and clapped rhythms, unstressed vowel durations and quarter-note clap intervals served as estimates of oral and hand movement speed, respectively. Syllable durations were significantly correlated with vowel durations and hand clap intervals. Sentence imitation was correlated with all three timed movement measures. Clustering on syllable repetition durations produced three clusters that also differed in sentence imitation scores. Results are consistent with limited movement speeds across motor systems and SSD subtypes defined by motor speeds as a corollary of expressive language abilities. PMID:22411590

Oral and hand movement speeds are associated with expressive language ability in children with speech sound disorder.

PubMed

Peter, Beate

2012-12-01

This study tested the hypothesis that children with speech sound disorder have generalized slowed motor speeds. It evaluated associations among oral and hand motor speeds and measures of speech (articulation and phonology) and language (receptive vocabulary, sentence comprehension, sentence imitation), in 11 children with moderate to severe SSD and 11 controls. Syllable durations from a syllable repetition task served as an estimate of maximal oral movement speed. In two imitation tasks, nonwords and clapped rhythms, unstressed vowel durations and quarter-note clap intervals served as estimates of oral and hand movement speed, respectively. Syllable durations were significantly correlated with vowel durations and hand clap intervals. Sentence imitation was correlated with all three timed movement measures. Clustering on syllable repetition durations produced three clusters that also differed in sentence imitation scores. Results are consistent with limited movement speeds across motor systems and SSD subtypes defined by motor speeds as a corollary of expressive language abilities.

Effects of blocking and presentation on the recognition of word and nonsense syllables in noise

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Benkí, José R.

2003-10-01

Listener expectations may have significant effects on spoken word recognition, modulating word similarity effects from the lexicon. This study investigates the effect of blocking by lexical status on the recognition of word and nonsense syllables in noise. 240 phonemically matched word and nonsense CVC syllables [Boothroyd and Nittrouer, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 84, 101-108 (1988)] were presented to listeners at different S/N ratios for identification. In the mixed condition, listeners were presented with blocks containing both words and nonwords, while listeners in the blocked condition were presented with the trials in blocks containing either words or nonwords. The targets were presented in isolation with 50 ms of preceding and following noise. Preliminary results indicate no effect of blocking on accuracy for either word or nonsense syllables; results from neighborhood density analyses will be presented. Consistent with previous studies, a j-factor analysis indicates that words are perceived as containing at least 0.5 fewer independent units than nonwords in both conditions. Relative to previous work on syllables presented in a frame sentence [Benkí, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 113, 1689-1705 (2003)], initial consonants were perceived significantly less accurately, while vowels and final consonants were perceived at comparable rates.

Activity of left inferior frontal gyrus related to word repetition effects: LORETA imaging with 128-channel EEG and individual MRI.

PubMed

Kim, Young Youn; Lee, Boreom; Shin, Yong Wook; Kwon, Jun Soo; Kim, Myung-Sun

2006-02-01

We investigated the brain substrate of word repetition effects on the implicit memory task using low-resolution electromagnetic tomography (LORETA) with high-density 128-channel EEG and individual MRI as a realistic head model. Thirteen right-handed, healthy subjects performed a word/non-word discrimination task, in which the words and non-words were presented visually, and some of the words appeared twice with a lag of one or five items. All of the subjects exhibited word repetition effects with respect to the behavioral data, in which a faster reaction time was observed to the repeated word (old word) than to the first presentation of the word (new word). The old words elicited more positive-going potentials than the new words, beginning at 200 ms and lasting until 500 ms post-stimulus. We conducted source reconstruction using LORETA at a latency of 400 ms with the peak mean global field potentials and used statistical parametric mapping for the statistical analysis. We found that the source elicited by the old words exhibited a statistically significant current density reduction in the left inferior frontal gyrus. This is the first study to investigate the generators of word repetition effects using voxel-by-voxel statistical mapping of the current density with individual MRI and high-density EEG.

The nature and treatment of phonological text agraphia.

PubMed

Beeson, Pélagie M; Rising, Kindle; DeMarco, Andrew T; Foley, Taylor Howard; Rapcsak, Steven Z

2018-06-01

Phonological alexia and agraphia are written language disorders characterised by disproportionate difficulty reading and spelling nonwords in comparison to real words. In phonological alexia, it has been shown that, despite relatively accurate reading of words in isolation, text-level reading deficits are often marked and persistent. Specifically, some individuals demonstrate difficulty reading functors and affixes in sentences, a profile referred to as phonological text alexia. In this paper, we demonstrate an analogous manifestation of the phonological impairment on text-level writing and suggest the term "phonological text agraphia". We examined four individuals with phonological alexia/agraphia who also showed disproportionate difficulty writing well-formed sentences in comparison to their grammatical competence in spoken utterances. Implementation of a phonological treatment protocol resulted in significantly improved sublexical phonology skills as well as improvements in grammatical accuracy of written narratives. These findings support the notion of a common phonological impairment underlying nonword reading/spelling deficits and sentence-level difficulties.

Single- versus dual-process models of lexical decision performance: insights from response time distributional analysis.

PubMed

Yap, Melvin J; Balota, David A; Cortese, Michael J; Watson, Jason M

2006-12-01

This article evaluates 2 competing models that address the decision-making processes mediating word recognition and lexical decision performance: a hybrid 2-stage model of lexical decision performance and a random-walk model. In 2 experiments, nonword type and word frequency were manipulated across 2 contrasts (pseudohomophone-legal nonword and legal-illegal nonword). When nonwords became more wordlike (i.e., BRNTA vs. BRANT vs. BRANE), response latencies to nonwords were slowed and the word frequency effect increased. More important, distributional analyses revealed that the Nonword Type = Word Frequency interaction was modulated by different components of the response time distribution, depending on the specific nonword contrast. A single-process random-walk model was able to account for this particular set of findings more successfully than the hybrid 2-stage model. (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved.

Stress Priming and Statistical Learning in Italian Nonword Reading: Evidence from Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Colombo, Lucia; Deguchi, Chizuru; Boureux, Magali

2014-01-01

Italian has regular spelling-sound correspondences; however, assignment of lexical stress is unpredictable. Sensitivity to stress neighborhood information was investigated by constructing three types of three-syllabic nonwords: nonwords with word-endings characterized by a strong neighborhood of dominant stress words (dominant), nonwords with…

Reading Development in an Orthographically Regular Language: Effects of Length, Frequency, Lexicality and Global Processing Ability

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zoccolotti, Pierluigi; De Luca, Maria; Di Filippo, Gloria; Judica, Anna; Martelli, Marialuisa

2009-01-01

The acquisition of reading skill was studied in 503 Italian children in first to eighth grade using a task that required reading of lists of words and non-words. Analysis of the metric characteristics of the measures indicated that reading speed but not accuracy was normally distributed across all ages considered. The role of specific effects…

Functional Anatomy of Recognition of Chinese Multi-Character Words: Convergent Evidence from Effects of Transposable Nonwords, Lexicality, and Word Frequency.

PubMed

Lin, Nan; Yu, Xi; Zhao, Ying; Zhang, Mingxia

2016-01-01

This fMRI study aimed to identify the neural mechanisms underlying the recognition of Chinese multi-character words by partialling out the confounding effect of reaction time (RT). For this purpose, a special type of nonword-transposable nonword-was created by reversing the character orders of real words. These nonwords were included in a lexical decision task along with regular (non-transposable) nonwords and real words. Through conjunction analysis on the contrasts of transposable nonwords versus regular nonwords and words versus regular nonwords, the confounding effect of RT was eliminated, and the regions involved in word recognition were reliably identified. The word-frequency effect was also examined in emerged regions to further assess their functional roles in word processing. Results showed significant conjunctional effect and positive word-frequency effect in the bilateral inferior parietal lobules and posterior cingulate cortex, whereas only conjunctional effect was found in the anterior cingulate cortex. The roles of these brain regions in recognition of Chinese multi-character words were discussed.

Phonics training for English-speaking poor readers.

PubMed

McArthur, Genevieve; Eve, Philippa M; Jones, Kristy; Banales, Erin; Kohnen, Saskia; Anandakumar, Thushara; Larsen, Linda; Marinus, Eva; Wang, Hua-Chen; Castles, Anne

2012-12-12

Around 5% of English speakers have a significant problem with learning to read words. Poor word readers are often trained to use letter-sound rules to improve their reading skills. This training is commonly called phonics. Well over 100 studies have administered some form of phonics training to poor word readers. However, there are surprisingly few systematic reviews or meta-analyses of these studies. The most well-known review was done by the National Reading Panel (Ehri 2001) 12 years ago and needs updating. The most recent review (Suggate 2010) focused solely on children and did not include unpublished studies. The primary aim of this review was to measure the effect that phonics training has on the literacy skills of English-speaking children, adolescents, and adults whose reading was at least one standard deviation (SD), one year, or one grade below the expected level, despite no reported problems that could explain their impaired ability to learn to read. A secondary objective was to explore the impact of various factors, such as length of training or training group size, that might moderate the effect of phonics training on poor word reading skills. We searched the following databases in July 2012: CENTRAL 2012 (Issue 6), MEDLINE 1948 to June week 3 2012, EMBASE 1980 to 2012 week 26, DARE 2013 (Issue 6), ERIC (1966 to current), PsycINFO (1806 to current), CINAHL (1938 to current), Science Citation Index (1970 to 29 June 2012), Social Science Citation Index (1970 to 29 June 2012), Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Science (1990 to 29 June 2012), Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Social Science & Humanities (1990 to 29 June 2012), ZETOC, Index to Theses-UK and Ireland, ClinicalTrials.gov, ICTRP, the metaRegister of Controlled Trials, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, DART Europe E-theses Portal, Australasian Digital Theses Program, Education Research Theses, Electronic Theses Online System, Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations. Theses Canada portal, www.dissertation.com, and www.thesisabstracts.com. We also contacted experts and examined the reference lists of published studies. We included studies that use randomisation, quasi-randomisation, or minimisation to allocate participants to either a phonics intervention group (phonics alone, phonics and phoneme awareness training, or phonics and irregular word reading training) or a control group (no training or alternative training, such as maths). Participants were English-speaking children, adolescents, or adults whose word reading was below the level expected for their age for no known reason (that is, they had adequate attention and no known physical, neurological, or psychological problems). Two review authors independently selected studies, assessed risk of bias, and extracted data. We found 11 studies that met the criteria for this review. They involved 736 participants. We measured the effect of phonics training on eight outcomes. The amount of evidence for each outcome varied considerably, ranging from 10 studies for word reading accuracy to one study for nonword reading fluency. The effect sizes for the outcomes were: word reading accuracy standardised mean difference (SMD) 0.47 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.06 to 0.88; 10 studies), nonword reading accuracy SMD 0.76 (95% CI 0.25 to 1.27; eight studies), word reading fluency SMD -0.51 (95% CI -1.14 to 0.13; two studies), reading comprehension SMD 0.14 (95% CI -0.46 to 0.74; three studies), spelling SMD 0.36 (95% CI -0.27 to 1.00; two studies), letter-sound knowledge SMD 0.35 (95% CI 0.04 to 0.65; three studies), and phonological output SMD 0.38 (95% -0.04 to 0.80; four studies). There was one result in a negative direction for nonword reading fluency SMD 0.38 (95% CI -0.55 to 1.32; one study), though this was not statistically significant.We did five subgroup analyses on two outcomes that had sufficient data (word reading accuracy and nonword reading accuracy). The efficacy of phonics training was not moderated significantly by training type (phonics alone versus phonics and phoneme awareness versus phonics and irregular word training), training intensity (less than two hours per week versus at least two hours per week), training duration (less than three months versus at least three months), training group size (one-on-one versus small group training), or training administrator (human administration versus computer administration). Phonics training appears to be effective for improving some reading skills. Specifically, statistically significant effects were found for nonword reading accuracy (large effect), word reading accuracy (moderate effect), and letter-sound knowledge (small-to-moderate effect). For several other outcomes, there were small or moderate effect sizes that did not reach statistical significance but may be meaningful: word reading fluency, spelling, phonological output, and reading comprehension. The effect for nonword reading fluency, which was measured in only one study, was in a negative direction, but this was not statistically significant.Future studies of phonics training need to improve the reporting of procedures used for random sequence generation, allocation concealment, and blinding of participants, personnel, and outcome assessment.

The Differential Effects of Two Types of Task Repetition on the Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency in Computer-Mediated L2 Written Production: A Focus on Computer Anxiety

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Amiryousefi, Mohammad

2016-01-01

Previous task repetition studies have primarily focused on how task repetition characteristics affect the complexity, accuracy, and fluency in L2 oral production with little attention to L2 written production. The main purpose of the study reported in this paper was to examine the effects of task repetition versus procedural repetition on the…

Contrasting contributions of phonological short-term memory and long-term knowledge to vocabulary learning in a foreign language.

PubMed

Masoura, Elvira V; Gathercole, Susan E

2005-01-01

The contributions of phonological short-term memory and existing foreign vocabulary knowledge to the learning of new words in a second language were compared in a sample of 40 Greek children studying English at school. The children's speed of learning new English words in a paired-associate learning task was strongly influenced by their current English vocabulary, but was independent of phonological memory skill, indexed by nonword repetition ability. However, phonological memory performance was closely linked to English vocabulary scores. The findings suggest that in learners with considerable familiarity with a second language, foreign vocabulary acquisition is mediated largely by use of existing knowledge representations.

Making things difficult in lexical decision: the impact of pseudohomophones and transposed-letter nonwords on frequency and semantic priming effects.

PubMed

Lupker, Stephen J; Pexman, Penny M

2010-09-01

Performance in a lexical decision task is crucially dependent on the difficulty of the word-nonword discrimination. More wordlike nonwords cause not only a latency increase for words but also, as reported by Stone and Van Orden (1993), larger word frequency effects. Several current models of lexical decision making can explain these types of results in terms of a single mechanism, a mechanism driven by the nature of the interactions within the lexicon. In 2 experiments, we replicated Stone and Van Orden's increased frequency effect using both pseudohomophones (e.g., BEEST) and transposed-letter nonwords (e.g., JUGDE) as the more wordlike nonwords. In a 3rd experiment, we demonstrated that simply increasing word latencies without changing the difficulty of the word-nonword discrimination does not produce larger frequency effects. These results are reasonably consistent with many current models. In contrast, neither pseudohomophones nor transposed-letter nonwords altered the size of semantic priming effects across 4 additional experiments, posing a challenge to models that would attempt to explain both nonword difficulty effects and semantic priming effects in lexical decision tasks in terms of a single, lexically driven mechanism. (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).

Masked Morphological Priming in German-Speaking Adults and Children: Evidence from Response Time Distributions

PubMed Central

Hasenäcker, Jana; Beyersmann, Elisabeth; Schroeder, Sascha

2016-01-01

In this study, we looked at masked morphological priming effects in German children and adults beyond mean response times by taking into account response time distributions. We conducted an experiment comparing suffixed word primes (kleidchen-KLEID), suffixed nonword primes (kleidtum-KLEID), nonsuffixed nonword primes (kleidekt-KLEID), and unrelated controls (träumerei-KLEID). The pattern of priming in adults showed facilitation from suffixed words, suffixed nonwords, and nonsuffixed nonwords relative to unrelated controls, and from both suffixed conditions relative to nonsuffixed nonwords, thus providing evidence for morpho-orthographic and embedded stem priming. Children also showed facilitation from real suffixed words, suffixed nonwords, and nonsuffixed nonwords compared to unrelated words, but no difference between the suffixed and nonsuffixed conditions, thus suggesting that German elementary school children do not make use of morpho-orthographic segmentation. Interestingly, for all priming effects, a shift of the response time distribution was observed. Consequences for theories of morphological processing are discussed. PMID:27445899

On the Additive Effects of Stimulus Quality and Word Frequency in Lexical Decision: Evidence for Opposing Interactive Influences Revealed by RT Distributional Analyses

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yap, Melvin J.; Balota, David A.; Tse, Chi-Shing; Besner, Derek

2008-01-01

The joint effects of stimulus quality and word frequency in lexical decision were examined in 4 experiments as a function of nonword type (legal nonwords, e.g., BRONE, vs. pseudohomophones, e.g., BRANE). When familiarity was a viable dimension for word-nonword discrimination, as when legal nonwords were used, additive effects of stimulus quality…

Responding to Nonwords in the Lexical Decision Task: Insights from the English Lexicon Project

PubMed Central

Yap, Melvin J.; Sibley, Daragh E.; Balota, David A.; Ratcliff, Roger; Rueckl, Jay

2014-01-01

Researchers have extensively documented how various statistical properties of words (e.g., word-frequency) influence lexical processing. However, the impact of lexical variables on nonword decision-making performance is less clear. This gap is surprising, since a better specification of the mechanisms driving nonword responses may provide valuable insights into early lexical processes. In the present study, item-level and participant-level analyses were conducted on the trial-level lexical decision data for almost 37,000 nonwords in the English Lexicon Project in order to identify the influence of different psycholinguistic variables on nonword lexical decision performance, and to explore individual differences in how participants respond to nonwords. Item-level regression analyses reveal that nonword response time was positively correlated with number of letters, number of orthographic neighbors, number of affixes, and baseword number of syllables, and negatively correlated with Levenshtein orthographic distance and baseword frequency. Participant-level analyses also point to within- and between-session stability in nonword responses across distinct sets of items, and intriguingly reveal that higher vocabulary knowledge is associated with less sensitivity to some dimensions (e.g., number of letters) but more sensitivity to others (e.g., baseword frequency). The present findings provide well-specified and interesting new constraints for informing models of word recognition and lexical decision. PMID:25329078

Semantic priming in the lexical decision task: roles of prospective prime-generated expectancies and retrospective semantic matching.

PubMed

Neely, J H; Keefe, D E; Ross, K L

1989-11-01

In semantic priming paradigms for lexical decisions, the probability that a word target is semantically related to its prime (the relatedness proportion) has been confounded with the probability that a target is a nonword, given that it is unrelated to its prime (the nonword ratio). This study unconfounded these two probabilities in a lexical decision task with category names as primes and with high- and low-dominance exemplars as targets. Semantic priming for high-dominance exemplars was modulated by the relatedness proportion and, to a lesser degree, by the nonword ratio. However, the nonword ratio exerted a stronger influence than did the relatedness proportion on semantic priming for low-dominance exemplars and on the nonword facilitation effect (i.e., the superiority in performance for nonword targets that follow a category name rather than a neutral XXX prime). These results suggest that semantic priming for lexical decisions is affected by both a prospective prime-generated expectancy, modulated by the relatedness proportion, and a retrospective target/prime semantic matching process, modulated by the nonword ratio.

Pushing typists back on the learning curve: Memory chunking in the hierarchical control of skilled typewriting.

PubMed

Yamaguchi, Motonori; Logan, Gordon D

2016-12-01

Hierarchical control of skilled performance depends on the ability of higher level control to process several lower level units as a single chunk. The present study investigated the development of hierarchical control of skilled typewriting, focusing on the process of memory chunking. In the first 3 experiments, skilled typists typed words or nonwords under concurrent memory load. Memory chunks developed and consolidated into long-term memory when the same typing materials were repeated in 6 consecutive trials, but chunks did not develop when repetitions were spaced. However, when concurrent memory load was removed during training, memory chunks developed more efficiently with longer lags between repetitions than shorter lags. From these results, it is proposed that memory chunking requires 2 representations of the same letter string to be maintained simultaneously in short-term memory: 1 representation from the current trial, and the other from an earlier trial that is either retained from the immediately preceding trial or retrieved from long-term memory (i.e., study state retrieval). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Procedural Learning and Individual Differences in Language

PubMed Central

Lee, Joanna C.; Tomblin, J. Bruce

2014-01-01

The aim of the current study was to examine different aspects of procedural memory in young adults who varied with regard to their language abilities. We selected a sample of procedural memory tasks, each of which represented a unique type of procedural learning, and has been linked, at least partially, to the functionality of the corticostriatal system. The findings showed that variance in language abilities is associated with performance on different domains of procedural memory, including the motor domain (as shown in the pursuit rotor task), the cognitive domain (as shown in the weather prediction task), and the linguistic domain (as shown in the nonword repetition priming task). These results implicate the corticostriatal system in individual differences in language. PMID:26190949

Responding to nonwords in the lexical decision task: Insights from the English Lexicon Project.

PubMed

Yap, Melvin J; Sibley, Daragh E; Balota, David A; Ratcliff, Roger; Rueckl, Jay

2015-05-01

Researchers have extensively documented how various statistical properties of words (e.g., word frequency) influence lexical processing. However, the impact of lexical variables on nonword decision-making performance is less clear. This gap is surprising, because a better specification of the mechanisms driving nonword responses may provide valuable insights into early lexical processes. In the present study, item-level and participant-level analyses were conducted on the trial-level lexical decision data for almost 37,000 nonwords in the English Lexicon Project in order to identify the influence of different psycholinguistic variables on nonword lexical decision performance and to explore individual differences in how participants respond to nonwords. Item-level regression analyses reveal that nonword response time was positively correlated with number of letters, number of orthographic neighbors, number of affixes, and base-word number of syllables, and negatively correlated with Levenshtein orthographic distance and base-word frequency. Participant-level analyses also point to within- and between-session stability in nonword responses across distinct sets of items, and intriguingly reveal that higher vocabulary knowledge is associated with less sensitivity to some dimensions (e.g., number of letters) but more sensitivity to others (e.g., base-word frequency). The present findings provide well-specified and interesting new constraints for informing models of word recognition and lexical decision. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Short-term Memory in Childhood Dyslexia: Deficient Serial Order in Multiple Modalities.

PubMed

Cowan, Nelson; Hogan, Tiffany P; Alt, Mary; Green, Samuel; Cabbage, Kathryn L; Brinkley, Shara; Gray, Shelley

2017-08-01

In children with dyslexia, deficits in working memory have not been well-specified. We assessed second-grade children with dyslexia, with and without concomitant specific language impairment, and children with typical development. Immediate serial recall of lists of phonological (non-word), lexical (digit), spatial (location) and visual (shape) items were included. For the latter three modalities, we used not only standard span but also running span tasks, in which the list length was unpredictable to limit mnemonic strategies. Non-word repetition tests indicated a phonological memory deficit in children with dyslexia alone compared with those with typical development, but this difference vanished when these groups were matched for non-verbal intelligence and language. Theoretically important deficits in serial order memory in dyslexic children, however, persisted relative to matched typically developing children. The deficits were in recall of (1) spoken digits in both standard and running span tasks and (2) spatial locations, in running span only. Children with dyslexia with versus without language impairment, when matched on non-verbal intelligence, had comparable serial order memory, but differed in phonology. Because serial orderings of verbal and spatial elements occur in reading, the careful examination of order memory may allow a deeper understanding of dyslexia and its relation to language impairment. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Limitations of the dual-process-theory regarding the writing of words and non-words to dictation.

PubMed

Tucha, Oliver; Trumpp, Christian; Lange, Klaus W

2004-12-01

It is generally assumed that the lexical and phonological systems are involved in writing to dictation. In an experiment concerned with the writing of words and non-words to dictation, the handwriting of female students was registered using a digitising tablet. The data contradict the assumption that the phonological system represents an alexical process. Both words and non-words which were acoustically presented to the subjects were lexically parsed. The analysis of kinematic data revealed significant differences between the subjects' writing of words and non-words. The findings reveal gross disturbances of handwriting fluency during the writing of non-words. The findings of the experiment cannot be explained by the dual-process-theory.

Facilitation of speech repetition accuracy by theta burst stimulation of the left posterior inferior frontal gyrus.

PubMed

Restle, Julia; Murakami, Takenobu; Ziemann, Ulf

2012-07-01

The posterior part of the inferior frontal gyrus (pIFG) in the left hemisphere is thought to form part of the putative human mirror neuron system and is assigned a key role in mapping sensory perception onto motor action. Accordingly, the pIFG is involved in motor imitation of the observed actions of others but it is not known to what extent speech repetition of auditory-presented sentences is also a function of the pIFG. Here we applied fMRI-guided facilitating intermittent theta burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (iTBS), or depressant continuous TBS (cTBS), or intermediate TBS (imTBS) over the left pIFG of healthy subjects and compared speech repetition accuracy of foreign Japanese sentences before and after TBS. We found that repetition accuracy improved after iTBS and, to a lesser extent, after imTBS, but remained unchanged after cTBS. In a control experiment, iTBS was applied over the left middle occipital gyrus (MOG), a region not involved in sensorimotor processing of auditory-presented speech. Repetition accuracy remained unchanged after iTBS of MOG. We argue that the stimulation type and stimulation site specific facilitating effect of iTBS over left pIFG on speech repetition accuracy indicates a causal role of the human left-hemispheric pIFG in the translation of phonological perception to motor articulatory output for repetition of speech. This effect may prove useful in rehabilitation strategies that combine repetitive speech training with iTBS of the left pIFG in speech disorders, such as aphasia after cerebral stroke. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Mojibake - The rehearsal of word fragments in verbal recall.

PubMed

Lange-Küttner, Christiane; Sykorova, Eva

2015-01-01

Theories of verbal rehearsal usually assume that whole words are being rehearsed. However, words consist of letter sequences, or syllables, or word onset-vowel-coda, amongst many other conceptualizations of word structure. A more general term is the 'grain size' of word units (Ziegler and Goswami, 2005). In the current study, a new method measured the quantitative percentage of correctly remembered word structure. The amount of letters in the correct letter sequence as per cent of word length was calculated, disregarding missing or added letters. A forced rehearsal was tested by repeating each memory list four times. We tested low frequency (LF) English words versus geographical (UK) town names to control for content. We also tested unfamiliar international (INT) non-words and names of international (INT) European towns to control for familiarity. An immediate versus distributed repetition was tested with a between-subject design. Participants responded with word fragments in their written recall especially when they had to remember unfamiliar words. While memory of whole words was sensitive to content, presentation distribution and individual sex and language differences, recall of word fragments was not. There was no trade-off between memory of word fragments with whole word recall during the repetition, instead also word fragments significantly increased. Moreover, while whole word responses correlated with each other during repetition, and word fragment responses correlated with each other during repetition, these two types of word recall responses were not correlated with each other. Thus there may be a lower layer consisting of free, sparse word fragments and an upper layer that consists of language-specific, orthographically and semantically constrained words.

Verbal short-term memory and vocabulary learning in polyglots.

PubMed

Papagno, C; Vallar, G

1995-02-01

Polyglot and non-polyglot Italian subjects were given tests assessing verbal (phonological) and visuo-spatial short-term and long-term memory, general intelligence, and vocabulary knowledge in their native language. Polyglots had a superior level of performance in verbal short-term memory tasks (auditory digit span and nonword repetition) and in a paired-associate learning test, which assessed the subjects' ability to acquire new (Russian) words. By contrast, the two groups had comparable performance levels in tasks assessing general intelligence, visuo-spatial short-term memory and learning, and paired-associate learning of Italian words. These findings, which are in line with neuropsychological and developmental evidence, as well as with data from normal subjects, suggest a close relationship between the capacity of phonological memory and the acquisition of foreign languages.

Responding to Nonwords in the Lexical Decision Task: Insights from the English Lexicon Project

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yap, Melvin J.; Sibley, Daragh E.; Balota, David A.; Ratcliff, Roger; Rueckl, Jay

2015-01-01

Researchers have extensively documented how various statistical properties of words (e.g., word frequency) influence lexical processing. However, the impact of lexical variables on nonword decision-making performance is less clear. This gap is surprising, because a better specification of the mechanisms driving nonword responses may provide…

Neighborhood Effects on Nonword Visual Processing in a Language with Shallow Orthography

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Arduino, Lisa S.; Burani, Cristina

2004-01-01

Neighborhood size and neighborhood frequency were orthogonally varied in two experiments on Italian nonwords. In Experiment 1, an inhibitory effect of neighborhood frequency on visual lexical decision was found: The presence of one high-frequency neighbor increased response latencies and error rates to nonwords. By contrast, no effect of…

Functional Anatomy of Recognition of Chinese Multi-Character Words: Convergent Evidence from Effects of Transposable Nonwords, Lexicality, and Word Frequency

PubMed Central

Lin, Nan; Yu, Xi; Zhao, Ying; Zhang, Mingxia

2016-01-01

This fMRI study aimed to identify the neural mechanisms underlying the recognition of Chinese multi-character words by partialling out the confounding effect of reaction time (RT). For this purpose, a special type of nonword—transposable nonword—was created by reversing the character orders of real words. These nonwords were included in a lexical decision task along with regular (non-transposable) nonwords and real words. Through conjunction analysis on the contrasts of transposable nonwords versus regular nonwords and words versus regular nonwords, the confounding effect of RT was eliminated, and the regions involved in word recognition were reliably identified. The word-frequency effect was also examined in emerged regions to further assess their functional roles in word processing. Results showed significant conjunctional effect and positive word-frequency effect in the bilateral inferior parietal lobules and posterior cingulate cortex, whereas only conjunctional effect was found in the anterior cingulate cortex. The roles of these brain regions in recognition of Chinese multi-character words were discussed. PMID:26901644

The Effects of Simultaneous Use of Careful Online Planning and Task Repetition on Accuracy, Complexity, and Fluency in EFL Learners' Oral Production

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ahmadian, Mohammad Javad; Tavakoli, Mansoor

2011-01-01

This article reports on a study that was primarily aimed at investigating the effects of simultaneous use of careful online planning and task repetition on accuracy, complexity, and fluency in the oral production of learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). The effects of four planning and task repetition conditions (i.e. careful online…

Linguistic Factors Influencing Speech Audiometric Assessment

PubMed Central

Krijger, Stefanie; Meeuws, Matthias; De Ceulaer, Geert

2016-01-01

In speech audiometric testing, hearing performance is typically measured by calculating the number of correct repetitions of a speech stimulus. We investigate to what extent the repetition accuracy of Dutch speech stimuli presented against a background noise is influenced by nonauditory processes. We show that variation in verbal repetition accuracy is partially explained by morpholexical and syntactic features of the target language. Verbs, prepositions, conjunctions, determiners, and pronouns yield significantly lower correct repetitions than nouns, adjectives, or adverbs. The reduced repetition performance for verbs and function words is probably best explained by the similarities in the perceptual nature of verbal morphology and function words in Dutch. For sentences, an overall negative effect of syntactic complexity on speech repetition accuracy was found. The lowest number of correct repetitions was obtained with passive sentences, reflecting the cognitive cost of processing a noncanonical sentence structure. Taken together, these findings may have important implications for the audiological practice. In combination with hearing loss, linguistic complexity may increase the cognitive demands to process sentences in noise, leading to suboptimal functional hearing in day-to-day listening situations. Using test sentences with varying degrees of syntactic complexity may therefore provide useful information to measure functional hearing benefits. PMID:27830152

The Role of Phonological Working Memory and Environmental Factors in Lexical Development in Italian-Speaking Late Talkers: A One-Year Follow-Up Study.

PubMed

Marini, Andrea; Ruffino, Milena; Sali, Maria Enrica; Molteni, Massimo

2017-12-20

This follow-up study assessed (a) the influence of phonological working memory (pWM), home literacy environment, and a family history of linguistic impairments in late talkers (LTs); (b) the diagnostic accuracy of a task of nonword repetition (NWR) in identifying LTs; and (c) the persistence of lexical weaknesses after 10 months. Two hundred ninety-three children were assessed at approximately 32 (t1) and 41 (t2) months. At t1, they were administered the Italian adaptation of the Language Development Survey, an NWR task (used to assess pWM), and questionnaires assessing home literacy environment and family history of language impairments. Thirty-three LTs were identified. The linguistic skills of the participants were evaluated at t2 by administering tasks assessing Articulation, Naming, Semantic Fluency, and Lexical Comprehension. At t2, LTs performed more poorly as compared with age-matched typically developing peers in articulatory and naming skills, had reduced lexical comprehension abilities, and had limited lexical knowledge. Their performance on the NWR task at t1 correlated with the extension of their vocabularies at t2 (as estimated with a Semantic Fluency task). The Language Development Survey recently adapted to Italian is sensitive to LTs. Former LTs still have a mild lexical delay at approximately 40 months. As an indirect measure of pWM, the task of NWR is an early indicator of future lexical deficits.

The Relationships among Cognitive Correlates and Irregular Word, Non-Word, and Word Reading

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abu-Hamour, Bashir; University, Mu'tah; Urso, Annmarie; Mather, Nancy

2012-01-01

This study explored four hypotheses: (a) the relationships among rapid automatized naming (RAN) and processing speed (PS) to irregular word, non-word, and word reading; (b) the predictive power of various RAN and PS measures, (c) the cognitive correlates that best predicted irregular word, non-word, and word reading, and (d) reading performance of…

Old and New Ways to Study Characteristics of Reading Disability: The Case of the Nonword-Reading Deficit

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Van den Broeck, Wim; Geudens, Astrid

2012-01-01

Theoretical and computational models of reading have traditionally been informed by specific characteristics of disabled readers. One of the most frequently studied marker effects of developmental dyslexia is the nonword-reading deficit. Disabled readers are generally believed to show a specific problem in reading nonwords. This study presents a…

Stress Sensitivity and Reading Performance in Spanish: A Study with Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gutierrez-Palma, Nicolas; Reyes, Alfonso Palma

2007-01-01

This paper investigates the relationship between ability to detect changes in prosody and reading performance in Spanish. Participants were children aged 7-8 years. Their tasks consisted of reading words, reading non-words, stressing non-words and reproducing sequences of two, three or four non-words by pressing the corresponding keys on the…

Judgments of duration, figure-ground contrast, and size for words and nonwords.

PubMed

Reber, Rolf; Zimmermann, Thomas D; Wurtz, Pascal

2004-10-01

Does the word-superiority effect on letter discrimination result in a word-superiority effect on duration judgments? We examined this question in five experiments. In the first four experiments, we have demonstrated that (1) words shown for 32-80 msec were judged as presented longer than non-words shown for the same duration; (2) this word-superiority effect persists if the stimuli are shown for an objective duration of up to 250 msec; and (3) these effects can be extended to judgments of figure-ground contrast and letter size. These findings extend existing data on effects of processing fluency on perceptual judgments. In Experiment 5, we found that duration judgments were higher for words than for pronounceable nonwords, and duration judgments were higher for pronounceable non-words than for nonpronounceable nonwords. We discuss the implications of this finding for the discrepancy-attribution hypothesis.

Spatial layout of letters in nonwords affects visual short-term memory load: evidence from human electrophysiology.

PubMed

Prime, David; Dell'acqua, Roberto; Arguin, Martin; Gosselin, Frédéric; Jolicœur, Pierre

2011-03-01

The sustained posterior contralateral negativity (SPCN) was used to investigate the effect of spatial layout on the maintenance of letters in VSTM. SPCN amplitude was measured for words, nonwords, and scrambled nonwords. We reexamined the effects of spatial layout of letters on SPCN amplitude in a design that equated the mean frequency of use of each position. Scrambled letters that did not form words elicited a larger SPCN than either words or nonwords, indicating lower VSTM load for nonwords presented in a typical horizontal array than the load observed for the same letters presented in spatially scrambled locations. In contrast, prior research has shown that the spatial extent of arrays of simple stimuli did not influence the amplitude of the SPCN. Thus, the present results indicate the existence of encoding and VSTM maintenance mechanisms specific to letter and word processing. Copyright © 2010 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

Associative priming effects with visible, transposed-letter nonwords: JUGDE facilitates COURT.

PubMed

Perea, Manuel; Palti, Dafna; Gomez, Pablo

2012-04-01

Associative priming effects can be obtained with masked nonword primes or with masked pseudohomophone primes (e.g., judpe-COURT, tode-FROG), but not with visible primes. The usual explanation is that when the prime is visible, these stimuli no longer activate the semantic representations of their base words. Given the important role of transposed-letter stimuli (e.g., jugde) in visual word recognition, here we examined whether or not an associative priming effect could be obtained with visible transposed-letter nonword primes (e.g., jugde-COURT) in a series of lexical decision experiments. Results showed a sizable associative priming effect with visible transposed-letter nonword primes (i.e., jugde-COURT faster than neevr-COURT) in Experiments 1-3 that was close to that with word primes. In contrast, we failed to find a parallel effect with replacement-letter nonword primes (Experiment 2). These findings pose some constraints to models of visual word recognition.

Effects of semantic context on access to words of low imageability in deep-phonological dysphasia: a treatment case study.

PubMed

McCarthy, Laura Mary; Kalinyak-Fliszar, Michelene; Kohen, Francine; Martin, Nadine

2017-01-01

Deep dysphasia is a relatively rare subcategory of aphasia, characterised by word repetition impairment and a profound auditory-verbal short-term memory (STM) limitation. Repetition of words is better than nonwords (lexicality effect) and better for high-image than low-image words (imageability effect). Another related language impairment profile is phonological dysphasia, which includes all of the characteristics of deep dysphasia except for the occurrence of semantic errors in single word repetition. The overlap in symptoms of deep and phonological dysphasia has led to the hypothesis that they share the same root cause, impaired maintenance of activated representation of words, but that they differ in severity of that impairment, with deep dysphasia being more severe. We report a single-subject multiple baseline, multiple probe treatment study of a person who presented with a pattern of repetition that was consistent with the continuum of deep-phonological dysphasia: imageability and lexicality effects in repetition of single and multiple words and semantic errors in repetition of multiple-word utterances. The aim of this treatment study was to improve access to and repetition of low-imageability words by embedding them in modifier-noun phrases that enhanced their imageability. The treatment involved repetition of abstract noun pairs. We created modifier-abstract noun phrases that increased the semantic and syntactic cohesiveness of the words in the pair. For example, the phrases "long distance" and "social exclusion" were developed to improve repetition of the abstract pair "distance-exclusion". The goal of this manipulation was to increase the probability of accessing lexical and semantic representations of abstract words in repetition by enriching their semantic -syntactic context. We predicted that this increase in accessibility would be maintained when the words were repeated as pairs, but without the contextual phrase. Treatment outcomes indicated that increasing the semantic and syntactic cohesiveness of low-imageability and low-frequency words later improved this participant's ability to repeat those words when presented in isolation. This treatment approach to improving access to abstract word pairs for repetition was successful for our participant with phonological dysphasia. The approach exemplifies the potential value in manipulating linguistic characteristics of stimuli in ways that improve access between phonological and lexical-semantic levels of representation. Additionally, this study demonstrates how principles of a cognitive model of word processing can be used to guide treatment of word processing impairments in aphasia.

Vocabulary Learning in Primary School Children: Working Memory and Long-Term Memory Components

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Morra, Sergio; Camba, Roberta

2009-01-01

The goal of this study was to investigate which working memory and long-term memory components predict vocabulary learning. We used a nonword learning paradigm in which 8- to 10-year-olds learned picture-nonword pairs. The nonwords varied in length (two vs. four syllables) and phonology (native sounding vs. including one Russian phoneme). Short,…

A Follow-Up Study on Word and Non-Word Reading Skills in Down Syndrome

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roch, Maja; Jarrold, Christopher

2012-01-01

The current study was designed to trace changes in the relationship between non-word reading and irregular word reading on the one hand, and between phonological awareness and non-word reading on the other, through a follow-up study of a group of individuals with Down syndrome. Twelve individuals with Down syndrome, whose data were originally…

Towards an Understanding of How Children Read and Spell Irregular Words: The Role of Nonword and Orthographic Processing Skills

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Johnston, Rhona; McGeown, Sarah; Moxon, Gerri Elizabeth

2014-01-01

This study examined, in 180 children aged from 6 to 9?years, to what extent irregular word reading and spelling were predicted by vocabulary knowledge, reading frequency, orthographic processing and nonword reading skill. Consistent with models of reading highlighting the quasi-regular nature of irregular words, it was found that nonword reading…

A test of the orthographic recoding hypothesis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gaygen, Daniel E.

2003-04-01

The Orthographic Recoding Hypothesis [D. E. Gaygen and P. A. Luce, Percept. Psychophys. 60, 465-483 (1998)] was tested. According to this hypothesis, listeners recognize spoken words heard for the first time by mapping them onto stored representations of the orthographic forms of the words. Listeners have a stable orthographic representation of words, but no phonological representation, when those words have been read frequently but never heard or spoken. Such may be the case for low frequency words such as jargon. Three experiments using visually and auditorily presented nonword stimuli tested this hypothesis. The first two experiments were explicit tests of memory (old-new tests) for words presented visually. In the first experiment, the recognition of auditorily presented nonwords was facilitated when they previously appeared on a visually presented list. The second experiment was similar, but included a concurrent articulation task during a visual word list presentation, thus preventing covert rehearsal of the nonwords. The results were similar to the first experiment. The third experiment was an indirect test of memory (auditory lexical decision task) for visually presented nonwords. Auditorily presented nonwords were identified as nonwords significantly more slowly if they had previously appeared on the visually presented list accompanied by a concurrent articulation task.

Is a "Phoenician" reading style superior to a "Chinese" reading style? Evidence from fourth graders.

PubMed

Bowey, Judith A

2008-07-01

This study compared normally achieving fourth-grade "Phoenician" readers, who identify nonwords significantly more accurately than they do exception words, with "Chinese" readers, who show the reverse pattern. Phoenician readers scored lower than Chinese readers on word identification, exception word reading, orthographic choice, spelling, reading comprehension, and verbal ability. When compared with normally achieving children who read nonwords and exception words equally well, Chinese readers scored as well as these children on word identification, regular word reading, orthographic choice, spelling, reading comprehension, phonological sensitivity, and verbal ability and scored better on exception word reading. Chinese readers also used rhyme-based analogies to read nonwords derived from high-frequency exception words just as often as did these children. As predicted, Phoenician and Chinese readers adopted somewhat different strategies in reading ambiguous nonwords constructed by analogy to high-frequency exception words. Phoenician readers were more likely than Chinese readers to read ambiguous monosyllabic nonwords via context-free grapheme-phoneme correspondences and were less likely to read disyllabic nonwords by analogy to high-frequency analogues. Although the Chinese reading style was more common than the Phoenician style in normally achieving fourth graders, there were similar numbers of poor readers with phonological dyslexia (identifying nonwords significantly more accurately than exception words) and surface dyslexia (showing the reverse pattern), although surface dyslexia was more common in the severely disabled readers. However, few of the poor readers showed pure patterns of phonological or surface dyslexia.

Mojibake – The rehearsal of word fragments in verbal recall

PubMed Central

Lange-Küttner, Christiane; Sykorova, Eva

2015-01-01

Theories of verbal rehearsal usually assume that whole words are being rehearsed. However, words consist of letter sequences, or syllables, or word onset-vowel-coda, amongst many other conceptualizations of word structure. A more general term is the ‘grain size’ of word units (Ziegler and Goswami, 2005). In the current study, a new method measured the quantitative percentage of correctly remembered word structure. The amount of letters in the correct letter sequence as per cent of word length was calculated, disregarding missing or added letters. A forced rehearsal was tested by repeating each memory list four times. We tested low frequency (LF) English words versus geographical (UK) town names to control for content. We also tested unfamiliar international (INT) non-words and names of international (INT) European towns to control for familiarity. An immediate versus distributed repetition was tested with a between-subject design. Participants responded with word fragments in their written recall especially when they had to remember unfamiliar words. While memory of whole words was sensitive to content, presentation distribution and individual sex and language differences, recall of word fragments was not. There was no trade-off between memory of word fragments with whole word recall during the repetition, instead also word fragments significantly increased. Moreover, while whole word responses correlated with each other during repetition, and word fragment responses correlated with each other during repetition, these two types of word recall responses were not correlated with each other. Thus there may be a lower layer consisting of free, sparse word fragments and an upper layer that consists of language-specific, orthographically and semantically constrained words. PMID:25941500

Making Things Difficult in Lexical Decision: The Impact of Pseudohomophones and Transposed-Letter Nonwords on Frequency and Semantic Priming Effects

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lupker, Stephen J.; Pexman, Penny M.

2010-01-01

Performance in a lexical decision task is crucially dependent on the difficulty of the word-nonword discrimination. More wordlike nonwords cause not only a latency increase for words but also, as reported by Stone and Van Orden (1993), larger word frequency effects. Several current models of lexical decision making can explain these types of…

Bilingual language processing after a lesion in the left thalamic and temporal regions. A case report with early childhood onset

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

van Lieshout, P.; Renier, W.; Eling, P.

1990-02-01

This case study concerns an 18-year-old bilingual girl who suffered a radiation lesion in the left (dominant) thalamic and temporal region when she was 4 years old. Language and memory assessment revealed deficits in auditory short-term memory, auditory word comprehension, nonword repetition, syntactic processing, word fluency, and confrontation naming tasks. Both languages (English and Dutch) were found to be affected in a similar manner, despite the fact that one language (English) was acquired before and the other (Dutch) after the period of lesion onset. Most of the deficits appear to be related to verbal (short-term) memory dysfunction. Several hypotheses ofmore » subcortical involvement in memory processes are discussed with reference to existing theories in this area.« less

On the additive effects of stimulus quality and word frequency in lexical decision: evidence for opposing interactive influences revealed by RT distributional analyses.

PubMed

Yap, Melvin J; Balota, David A; Tse, Chi-Shing; Besner, Derek

2008-05-01

The joint effects of stimulus quality and word frequency in lexical decision were examined in 4 experiments as a function of nonword type (legal nonwords, e.g., BRONE, vs. pseudohomophones, e.g., BRANE). When familiarity was a viable dimension for word-nonword discrimination, as when legal nonwords were used, additive effects of stimulus quality and word frequency were observed in both means and distributional characteristics of the response-time distributions. In contrast, when the utility of familiarity was undermined by using pseudohomophones, additivity was observed in the means but not in distributional characteristics. Specifically, opposing interactive effects in the underlying distribution were observed, producing apparent additivity in means. These findings are consistent with the suggestion that, when familiarity is deemphasized in lexical decision, cascaded processing between letter and word levels is in play, whereas, when familiarity is a viable dimension for word-nonword discrimination, processing is discrete.

Is the masked priming same-different task a pure measure of prelexical processing?

PubMed

Kelly, Andrew N; van Heuven, Walter J B; Pitchford, Nicola J; Ledgeway, Timothy

2013-01-01

To study prelexical processes involved in visual word recognition a task is needed that only operates at the level of abstract letter identities. The masked priming same-different task has been purported to do this, as the same pattern of priming is shown for words and nonwords. However, studies using this task have consistently found a processing advantage for words over nonwords, indicating a lexicality effect. We investigated the locus of this word advantage. Experiment 1 used conventional visually-presented reference stimuli to test previous accounts of the lexicality effect. Results rule out the use of different strategies, or strength of representations, for words and nonwords. No interaction was shown between prime type and word type, but a consistent word advantage was found. Experiment 2 used novel auditorally-presented reference stimuli to restrict nonword matching to the sublexical level. This abolished scrambled priming for nonwords, but not words. Overall this suggests the processing advantage for words over nonwords results from activation of whole-word, lexical representations. Furthermore, the number of shared open-bigrams between primes and targets could account for scrambled priming effects. These results have important implications for models of orthographic processing and studies that have used this task to investigate prelexical processes.

Accuracy and speed of orthographic processing in persons with developmental dyslexia.

PubMed

King, Wayne M; Lombardino, Linda L; Ahmed, Sarah

2005-08-01

A group of 39 persons (20 male and 19 female, 11.0 to 32.5 yr.) with developmental dyslexia and 42 controls (21 male and 21 female, 11.2 to 32.3 years) were compared on computerized tests of sight word reading, nonword decoding, and spelling recognition. The subjects with developmental dyslexia performed significantly slower and less accurately than controls on all tasks. Further, the effect size of the group differences was larger for the older group. Within-group analyses showed a significant difference by age group on accuracy. Only the control group showed a significant age difference between groups on response time. Mean accuracy and response times for the reading-disabled subjects resembled shifted versions of the control group means. These results agree with previous reports that phonological deficits persist for reading-disabled adults and suggest a test of whether the discrepancy between reading-disabled and typically achieving readers may actually increase across age groups.

Sentence Repetition Accuracy in Adults with Developmental Language Impairment: Interactions of Participant Capacities and Sentence Structures

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Poll, Gerard H.; Miller, Carol A.; van Hell, Janet G.

2016-01-01

Purpose: We asked whether sentence repetition accuracy could be explained by interactions of participant processing limitations with the structures of the sentences. We also tested a prediction of the procedural deficit hypothesis (Ullman & Pierpont, 2005) that adjuncts are more difficult than arguments for individuals with developmental…

Are baboons learning "orthographic" representations? Probably not

PubMed Central

Bröker, Franziska; Ramscar, Michael; Baayen, Harald

2017-01-01

The ability of Baboons (papio papio) to distinguish between English words and nonwords has been modeled using a deep learning convolutional network model that simulates a ventral pathway in which lexical representations of different granularity develop. However, given that pigeons (columba livia), whose brain morphology is drastically different, can also be trained to distinguish between English words and nonwords, it appears that a less species-specific learning algorithm may be required to explain this behavior. Accordingly, we examined whether the learning model of Rescorla and Wagner, which has proved to be amazingly fruitful in understanding animal and human learning could account for these data. We show that a discrimination learning network using gradient orientation features as input units and word and nonword units as outputs succeeds in predicting baboon lexical decision behavior—including key lexical similarity effects and the ups and downs in accuracy as learning unfolds—with surprising precision. The models performance, in which words are not explicitly represented, is remarkable because it is usually assumed that lexicality decisions, including the decisions made by baboons and pigeons, are mediated by explicit lexical representations. By contrast, our results suggest that in learning to perform lexical decision tasks, baboons and pigeons do not construct a hierarchy of lexical units. Rather, they make optimal use of low-level information obtained through the massively parallel processing of gradient orientation features. Accordingly, we suggest that reading in humans first involves initially learning a high-level system building on letter representations acquired from explicit instruction in literacy, which is then integrated into a conventionalized oral communication system, and that like the latter, fluent reading involves the massively parallel processing of the low-level features encoding semantic contrasts. PMID:28859134

Are baboons learning "orthographic" representations? Probably not.

PubMed

Linke, Maja; Bröker, Franziska; Ramscar, Michael; Baayen, Harald

2017-01-01

The ability of Baboons (papio papio) to distinguish between English words and nonwords has been modeled using a deep learning convolutional network model that simulates a ventral pathway in which lexical representations of different granularity develop. However, given that pigeons (columba livia), whose brain morphology is drastically different, can also be trained to distinguish between English words and nonwords, it appears that a less species-specific learning algorithm may be required to explain this behavior. Accordingly, we examined whether the learning model of Rescorla and Wagner, which has proved to be amazingly fruitful in understanding animal and human learning could account for these data. We show that a discrimination learning network using gradient orientation features as input units and word and nonword units as outputs succeeds in predicting baboon lexical decision behavior-including key lexical similarity effects and the ups and downs in accuracy as learning unfolds-with surprising precision. The models performance, in which words are not explicitly represented, is remarkable because it is usually assumed that lexicality decisions, including the decisions made by baboons and pigeons, are mediated by explicit lexical representations. By contrast, our results suggest that in learning to perform lexical decision tasks, baboons and pigeons do not construct a hierarchy of lexical units. Rather, they make optimal use of low-level information obtained through the massively parallel processing of gradient orientation features. Accordingly, we suggest that reading in humans first involves initially learning a high-level system building on letter representations acquired from explicit instruction in literacy, which is then integrated into a conventionalized oral communication system, and that like the latter, fluent reading involves the massively parallel processing of the low-level features encoding semantic contrasts.

Developmental dyslexia in adults: behavioural manifestations and cognitive correlates.

PubMed

Nergård-Nilssen, Trude; Hulme, Charles

2014-08-01

This paper explores the nature of residual literacy and cognitive deficits in self-reported dyslexic Norwegian adults. The performance of 26 self-reported dyslexic adults was compared with that of a comparison group of 47 adults with no history of reading or spelling difficulties. Participants completed standardized and experimental measures tapping literacy skills, working memory, phonological awareness and rapid naming. Spelling problems were the most prominent marker of dyslexia in adults, followed by text reading fluency and nonword decoding. Working memory and phoneme awareness explained unique variance in spelling, whereas rapid automatized naming explained unique variance in reading fluency and nonword reading. The moderate to strong correlations between self-reported history, self-rating of current literacy skills and outcomes on literacy tests indicate that adults estimated their literacy skills fairly well. Results suggest that spelling impairments, more strongly than reading impairments, make adults perceive themselves as being dyslexic. A combination of three literacy and three cognitive tests predicted group membership with 90.4% accuracy. It appears that weaknesses in phoneme awareness, rapid automatized naming and working memory are strong and persistent correlates of literacy problems even in adults learning a relatively transparent orthography. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A sublexical training study for spelling in a biliterate Greek- and English-speaking child.

PubMed

Niolaki, Georgia Z; Terzopoulos, Aris R; Masterson, Jackie

2017-06-01

RI is an emergent trilingual boy, literate in Greek and English, with difficulties in reading and spelling in both languages. Assessment with non-literacy tests revealed a deficit in phonological ability and in visual memory for sequentially presented characters. RI took part in a training programme that targeted sublexical spelling processes. Post-intervention assessment revealed improvement in reading and spelling in Greek but not in English. Assessments of lexical and sublexical skills showed improvement in nonword spelling and nonword reading for Greek. For English, there was some indication of improvement in nonword reading at delayed post-intervention testing, but no evidence of improvement in nonword spelling. Possible reasons for the difference in outcome for the two languages are considered, including the level of transparency of written Greek and English.

Does simultaneous bilingualism aggravate children's specific language problems?

PubMed

Korkman, Marit; Stenroos, Maria; Mickos, Annika; Westman, Martin; Ekholm, Pia; Byring, Roger

2012-09-01

There is little data on whether or not a bilingual upbringing may aggravate specific language problems in children. This study analysed whether there was an interaction of such problems and simultaneous bilingualism. Participants were 5- to 7-year-old children with specific language problems (LANG group, N = 56) or who were typically developing (CONTR group, N = 60). Seventy-three children were Swedish-Finnish bilingual and 43 were Swedish-speaking monolingual. Assessments (in Swedish) included tests of expressive language, comprehension, repetition and verbal memory. Per definition, the LANG group had lower scores than the CONTR group on all language tests. The bilingual group had lower scores than the monolingual group only on a test of body part naming. Importantly, the interaction of group (LANG or CONTR) and bilingualism was not significant on any of the language scores. Simultaneous bilingualism does not aggravate specific language problems but may result in a slower development of vocabulary both in children with and without specific language problems. Considering also advantages, a bilingual upbringing is an option also for children with specific language problems. In assessment, tests of vocabulary may be sensitive to bilingualism, instead tests assessing comprehension, syntax and nonword repetition may provide less biased methods. © 2012 The Author(s)/Acta Paediatrica © 2012 Foundation Acta Paediatrica.

A multivariate twin study of early literacy in Japanese Kana

PubMed Central

Fujisawa, Keiko K.; Wadsworth, Sally J.; Kakihana, Shinichiro; Olson, Richard K.; DeFries, John C.; Byrne, Brian; Ando, Juko

2013-01-01

This first Japanese twin study of early literacy development investigated the extent to which genetic and environmental factors influence individual differences in prereading skills in 238 pairs of twins at 42 months of age. Twin pairs were individually tested on measures of phonological awareness, kana letter name/sound knowledge, receptive vocabulary, visual perception, nonword repetition, and digit span. Results obtained from univariate behavioral-genetic analyses yielded little evidence for genetic influences, but substantial shared-environmental influences, for all measures. Phenotypic confirmatory factor analysis suggested three correlated factors: phonological awareness, letter name/sound knowledge, and general prereading skills. Multivariate behavioral genetic analyses confirmed relatively small genetic and substantial shared environmental influences on the factors. The correlations among the three factors were mostly attributable to shared environment. Thus, shared environmental influences play an important role in the early reading development of Japanese children. PMID:23997545

Nonword reading and Stroop interference: what differentiates attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and reading disability?

PubMed

Stubenrauch, Christa; Freund, Juliane; Alecu de Flers, Simone; DeFlers, Simone; Scharke, Wolfgang; Braun, Mario; Jacobs, Arthur M; Konrad, Kerstin

2014-01-01

Attention deficits and impaired reading performance co-occur more often than expected by chance; however, the underlying mechanism of this association still remains rather unexplored. In two consecutive studies, children aged 8 to 12 years with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and children with reading disability (RD) were examined using a 2 (ADHD versus no ADHD) × 2 (RD versus no RD) factorial design. To further delineate deficient interference control from reading processes, we used a newly developed self-paced word/nonword reading task (Experiment 1, n = 68) and a modified computerized Stroop paradigm, including an orthographic phonological neighbor (OPN) condition (Experiment 2, n = 84). RD (compared to non-RD groups) was associated with impairments in both word and nonword reading, while children with ADHD also showed impaired nonword reading. In the Stroop task, RD, but not ADHD, had a significant impact on task performance. Interestingly, a significant interaction between ADHD, RD, and task condition emerged, which was due to particularly slower reaction times to nonwords in children with RD only, while task performance in children with comorbid ADHD and RD resembled that of ADHD only. Thus, our results demonstrate that impairments in nonword reading were not specific to RD but were also present in children with ADHD. In addition, RD and not ADHD was characterized by poor interference control in the Stroop task. These findings question whether unique cognitive deficits are specific to either ADHD or RD.

The Monosyllable Imitation Test for Toddlers: influence of stimulus characteristics on imitation, compliance and diagnostic accuracy.

PubMed

Hodges, Rosemary; Munro, Natalie; Baker, Elise; McGregor, Karla; Heard, Rob

2017-01-01

Although verbal imitation can provide a valuable window into the developing language abilities of toddlers, some toddlers find verbal imitation challenging and will not comply with tests that involve elicited verbal imitation. The characteristics of stimuli that are offered to toddlers for imitation may influence how easy or hard it is for them to imitate. This study presents a new test of elicited imitation-the Monosyllable Imitation Test for Toddlers (MITT)-comprising stimuli of varying characteristics and test features designed to optimize compliance. To investigate whether the stimulus characteristics of neighbourhood density and consonant complexity have independent and/or convergent influences on imitation accuracy; and to examine non-compliance rates and diagnostic accuracy of the MITT and an existing test, the Test of Early Nonword Repetition (TENR) (Stokes and Klee 2009a). Fifty-two toddlers (25-35 months) participated. Twenty-six had typically developing language (TDs) and 26 were defined as late talkers (LTs) based on parent-reported vocabulary. The MITT stimuli were created by manipulating both neighbourhood density (dense or sparse) and consonant complexity (early- or late-developing initial consonant). The MITT was designed to maximize compliance by: (1) using eight monosyllabic stimuli, (2) providing three exposures to stimuli and (3) embedding imitation in a motivating context: a computer animation with reasons for imitation. Stimulus characteristics influenced imitation accuracy in TDs and LTs. For TDs, neighbourhood density had an independent influence, whereas for LTs consonant complexity had an independent influence. These characteristics also had convergent influences. For TDs, stimuli were all equally easy to imitate, except those that were both sparse and contained a late-developing consonant which were harder to imitate. For LTs, stimuli that were both dense and contained an early-developing consonant were easier to imitate than any other stimuli. Two LTs and no TDs were non-compliant with the MITT. With the TENR, five LTs and two TDs were non-compliant. The MITT and TENR yielded similar levels of diagnostic sensitivity, but the TENR offered higher specificity rates. Subsets of stimuli from the MITT and the TENR also showed diagnostic promise when explored post-hoc. Stimulus characteristics converge to influence imitation accuracy in both TD and LT toddlers and therefore should be considered when designing stimuli. The MITT resulted in better compliance than the TENR, but the TENR offered higher specificity. Insights about late talking, elicited imitation and speech production capabilities are discussed. © 2016 Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.

The development of adaptive memory: Young children show enhanced retention of animacy-related information.

PubMed

Aslan, Alp; John, Thomas

2016-12-01

Previous developmental work has indicated that animacy is a foundational ontogenetic category that is given priority already early in life. Here, we investigated whether such priority is also present in children's episodic memory, examining whether young children show enhanced retention of animacy-related information. Kindergartners and younger and older elementary school children were presented with fictitious (non)words (e.g., BULA, LAFE) paired with properties characteristic of humans (e.g., "likes music"), (nonhuman) animals (e.g., "builds nests"), and inanimate things (e.g., "has four edges") and were asked to rate the animacy status of each nonword. After a retention interval, a surprise recognition test for the nonwords was administered. We found enhanced recognition of nonwords paired with human and animal properties compared with (the same) nonwords paired with inanimate properties. The size of this animacy advantage was comparable across age groups, suggesting developmental invariance of the advantage over the age range examined (i.e., 4-11years). The results support a functional-evolutionary view on memory, suggesting that already young children's memory is "tuned" to process and retain animacy. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Predicting one repetition maximum equations accuracy in paralympic rowers with motor disabilities.

PubMed

Schwingel, Paulo A; Porto, Yuri C; Dias, Marcelo C M; Moreira, Mônica M; Zoppi, Cláudio C

2009-05-01

Predicting one repetition maximum equations accuracy in paralympic rowers Resistance training intensity is prescribed using percentiles of the maximum strength, defined as the maximum tension generated for a muscle or muscular group. This value is found through the application of the one maximal repetition (1RM) test. One maximal repetition test demands time and still is not appropriate for some populations because of the risk it offers. In recent years, the prediction of maximal strength, through predicting equations, has been used to prevent the inconveniences of the 1RM test. The purpose of this study was to verify the accuracy of 12 1RM predicting equations for disabled rowers. Nine male paralympic rowers (7 one-leg amputated rowers and 2 cerebral paralyzed rowers; age, 30 +/- 7.9 years; height, 175.1 +/- 5.9 cm; weight, 69 +/- 13.6 kg) performed 1RM test for lying T-bar row and flat barbell bench press exercises to determine upper-body strength and leg press exercise to determine lower-body strength. One maximal repetition test was performed, and based on submaximal repetitions loads, several linear and exponential equations models were tested with regard of their accuracy. We did not find statistical differences for lying T-bar row and bench press exercises between measured and predicted 1RM values (p = 0.84 and 0.23 for lying T-bar row and flat barbell bench press, respectively); however, leg press exercise reached a high significant difference between measured and predicted values (p < 0.01). In conclusion, rowers with motor disabilities tolerate 1RM testing procedures, and predicting 1RM equations are accurate for bench press and lying T-bar row, but not for leg press, in this kind of athlete.

Self-Rated Accuracy of Rating of Perceived Exertion-Based Load Prescription in Powerlifters.

PubMed

Helms, Eric R; Brown, Scott R; Cross, Matt R; Storey, Adam; Cronin, John; Zourdos, Michael C

2017-10-01

This study assessed male (n = 9) and female (n = 3) powerlifters' (18-49 years) ability to select loads using the repetitions in reserve-based rating of perceived exertion (RPE) scale for a single set for squat, bench press, and deadlift. Subjects trained 3× per week. For 3 weeks on nonconsecutive days in the weekly order of hypertrophy (8 repetitions at 8 RPE), power (2 repetitions at 8 RPE), and strength (3 repetitions at 9 RPE), using subject-selected loads intended to match the target RPE. Bench press and squat were performed every session and deadlift during strength and power only. Mean absolute RPE differences (|reported RPE-target RPE|) ranged from 0.22-0.44, with a mean of 0.33 ± 0.28 RPE. There were no significant RPE differences within lifts between sessions for squat or deadlift. However, bench press was closer to the target RPE for strength (0.15 ± 0.42 RPE) vs. power (-0.21 ± 0.35 RPE, p = 0.05). There were no significant differences within session between lifts for power and strength. However, bench press was closer (0.14 ± 0.44 RPE) to the target RPE than squat (-0.19 ± 0.21 RPE) during hypertrophy (p = 0.02). Squat power was closer to the target RPE in week 3 (0.08 ± 0.29 RPE) vs. 1 (-0.46 ± 0.69 RPE, p = 0.03). It seems that powerlifters can accurately select loads to reach a prescribed RPE. However, accuracy for 8-repetition sets at 8 RPE may be better for bench press compared with squat. Rating squat power-type training may take 3 weeks to reach peak accuracy. Finally, bench press RPE accuracy seems better closer rather than further from failure (i.e., 3-repetition 9 RPE sets vs. 2-repetition 8 RPE sets).

Transcribing nonsense words: The effect of numbers of voices and repetitions.

PubMed

Knight, Rachael-Anne

2010-06-01

Transcription skills are crucially important to all phoneticians, and particularly for speech and language therapists who may use transcriptions to make decisions about diagnosis and intervention. Whilst interest in factors affecting transcription accuracy is increasing, there are still a number of issues that are yet to be investigated. The present paper considers how the number of voices and the number of repetitions affects the transcription of nonsense words. Thirty-two students in their second year of study for a BSc in Speech and Language Therapy were participants in an experiment. They heard two nonsense words presented 10 times in either one or two voices. Results show that the number of voices did not affect accuracy, but that accuracy increased between six and ten repetitions. The reasons behind these findings, and implications for teaching and learning, and further research are discussed.

Word learning and the cerebral hemispheres: from serial to parallel processing of written words

PubMed Central

Ellis, Andrew W.; Ferreira, Roberto; Cathles-Hagan, Polly; Holt, Kathryn; Jarvis, Lisa; Barca, Laura

2009-01-01

Reading familiar words differs from reading unfamiliar non-words in two ways. First, word reading is faster and more accurate than reading of unfamiliar non-words. Second, effects of letter length are reduced for words, particularly when they are presented in the right visual field in familiar formats. Two experiments are reported in which right-handed participants read aloud non-words presented briefly in their left and right visual fields before and after training on those items. The non-words were interleaved with familiar words in the naming tests. Before training, naming was slow and error prone, with marked effects of length in both visual fields. After training, fewer errors were made, naming was faster, and the effect of length was much reduced in the right visual field compared with the left. We propose that word learning creates orthographic word forms in the mid-fusiform gyrus of the left cerebral hemisphere. Those word forms allow words to access their phonological and semantic representations on a lexical basis. But orthographic word forms also interact with more posterior letter recognition systems in the middle/inferior occipital gyri, inducing more parallel processing of right visual field words than is possible for any left visual field stimulus, or for unfamiliar non-words presented in the right visual field. PMID:19933140

Patterns of cerebral activation during lexical and phonological reading in Portuguese.

PubMed

Senaha, M L H; Martin, M G M; Amaro, E; Campi, C; Caramelli, P

2005-12-01

According to the concepts of cognitive neuropsychology, there are two principal routes of reading processing: a lexical route, in which global reading of words occurs and a phonological route, responsible for the conversion of the graphemes into their respective phonemes. In the present study, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to investigate the patterns of cerebral activation in lexical and phonological reading by 13 healthy women with a formal educational level greater than 11 years. Participants were submitted to a silent reading task containing three types of stimuli: real words (irregular and foreign words), nonwords and illegitimate graphic stimuli. An increased number of activated voxels were identified by fMRI in the word reading (lexical processing) than in the nonword reading (phonological processing) task. In word reading, activation was greater than for nonwords in the following areas: superior, middle and inferior frontal gyri, and bilateral superior temporal gyrus, right cerebellum and the left precentral gyrus, as indicated by fMRI. In the reading of nonwords, the activation was predominant in the right cerebellum and in the left superior temporal gyrus. The results of the present study suggest the existence of differences in the patterns of cerebral activation during lexical and phonological reading, with greater involvement of the right hemisphere in reading words than nonwords.

The interaction of short-term and long-term memory in phonetic category formation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Harnsberger, James D.

2002-05-01

This study examined the role that short-term memory capacity plays in the relationship between novel stimuli (e.g., non-native speech sounds, native nonsense words) and phonetic categories in long-term memory. Thirty native speakers of American English were administered five tests: categorial AXB discrimination using nasal consonants from Malayalam; categorial identification, also using Malayalam nasals, which measured the influence of phonetic categories in long-term memory; digit span; nonword span, a short-term memory measure mediated by phonetic categories in long-term memory; and paired-associate word learning (word-word and word-nonword pairs). The results showed that almost all measures were significantly correlated with one another. The strongest predictor for the discrimination and word-nonword learning results was nonword (r=+0.62) and digit span (r=+0.51), respectively. When the identification test results were partialed out, only nonword span significantly correlated with discrimination. The results show a strong influence of short-term memory capacity on the encoding of phonetic detail within phonetic categories and suggest that long-term memory representations regulate the capacity of short-term memory to preserve information for subsequent encoding. The results of this study will also be discussed with regards to resolving the tension between episodic and abstract models of phonetic category structure.

Cross-Linguistic Influence in the Bilingual Mental Lexicon: Evidence of Cognate Effects in the Phonetic Production and Processing of a Vowel Contrast.

PubMed

Amengual, Mark

2016-01-01

The present study examines cognate effects in the phonetic production and processing of the Catalan back mid-vowel contrast (/o/-/ɔ/) by 24 early and highly proficient Spanish-Catalan bilinguals in Majorca (Spain). Participants completed a picture-naming task and a forced-choice lexical decision task in which they were presented with either words (e.g., /bɔsk/ "forest") or non-words based on real words, but with the alternate mid-vowel pair in stressed position ((*)/bosk/). The same cognate and non-cognate lexical items were included in the production and lexical decision experiments. The results indicate that even though these early bilinguals maintained the back mid-vowel contrast in their productions, they had great difficulties identifying non-words and real words based on the identity of the Catalan mid-vowel. The analyses revealed language dominance and cognate effects: Spanish-dominants exhibited higher error rates than Catalan-dominants, and production and lexical decision accuracy were also affected by cognate status. The present study contributes to the discussion of the organization of early bilinguals' dominant and non-dominant sound systems, and proposes that exemplar theoretic approaches can be extended to include bilingual lexical connections that account for the interactions between the phonetic and lexical levels of early bilingual individuals.

Listening with a foreign-accent: The interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit in Mandarin speakers of English

PubMed Central

Xie, Xin; Fowler, Carol A.

2013-01-01

This study examined the intelligibility of native and Mandarin-accented English speech for native English and native Mandarin listeners. In the latter group, it also examined the role of the language environment and English proficiency. Three groups of listeners were tested: native English listeners (NE), Mandarin-speaking Chinese listeners in the US (M-US) and Mandarin listeners in Beijing, China (M-BJ). As a group, M-US and M-BJ listeners were matched on English proficiency and age of acquisition. A nonword transcription task was used. Identification accuracy for word-final stops in the nonwords established two independent interlanguage intelligibility effects. An interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit for listeners (ISIB-L) was manifest by both groups of Mandarin listeners outperforming native English listeners in identification of Mandarin-accented speech. In the benefit for talkers (ISIB-T), only M-BJ listeners were more accurate identifying Mandarin-accented speech than native English speech. Thus, both Mandarin groups demonstrated an ISIB-L while only the M-BJ group overall demonstrated an ISIB-T. The English proficiency of listeners was found to modulate the magnitude of the ISIB-T in both groups. Regression analyses also suggested that the listener groups differ in their use of acoustic information to identify voicing in stop consonants. PMID:24293741

Independent and Combined Effects of Socioeconomic Status (SES) and Bilingualism on Children's Vocabulary and Verbal Short-Term Memory.

PubMed

Meir, Natalia; Armon-Lotem, Sharon

2017-01-01

The current study explores the influence of socioeconomic status (SES) and bilingualism on the linguistic skills and verbal short-term memory of preschool children. In previous studies comparing children of low and mid-high SES, the terms "a child with low-SES" and "a child speaking a minority language" are often interchangeable, not enabling differentiated evaluation of these two variables. The present study controls for this confluence by testing children born and residing in the same country and attending the same kindergartens, with all bilingual children speaking the same heritage language (HL-Russian). A total of 120 children (88 bilingual children: 44 with low SES; and 32 monolingual children: 16 with low SES) with typical language development, aged 5; 7-6; 7, were tested in the societal language (SL-Hebrew) on expressive vocabulary and three repetition tasks [forward digit span (FWD), nonword repetition (NWR), and sentence repetition (SRep)], which tap into verbal short-term memory. The results indicated that SES and bilingualism impact different child abilities. Bilingualism is associated with decreased vocabulary size and lower performance on verbal short-term memory tasks with higher linguistic load in the SL-Hebrew. The negative effect of bilingualism on verbal short-term memory disappears once vocabulary is accounted for. SES influences not only linguistic performance, but also verbal short-term memory with lowest linguistic load. The negative effect of SES cannot be solely attributed to lower vocabulary scores, suggesting that an unprivileged background has a negative impact on children's cognitive development beyond a linguistic disadvantage. The results have important clinical implications and call for more research exploring the varied impact of language and life experience on children's linguistic and cognitive skills.

Language repetition and short-term memory: an integrative framework.

PubMed

Majerus, Steve

2013-01-01

Short-term maintenance of verbal information is a core factor of language repetition, especially when reproducing multiple or unfamiliar stimuli. Many models of language processing locate the verbal short-term maintenance function in the left posterior superior temporo-parietal area and its connections with the inferior frontal gyrus. However, research in the field of short-term memory has implicated bilateral fronto-parietal networks, involved in attention and serial order processing, as being critical for the maintenance and reproduction of verbal sequences. We present here an integrative framework aimed at bridging research in the language processing and short-term memory fields. This framework considers verbal short-term maintenance as an emergent function resulting from synchronized and integrated activation in dorsal and ventral language processing networks as well as fronto-parietal attention and serial order processing networks. To-be-maintained item representations are temporarily activated in the dorsal and ventral language processing networks, novel phoneme and word serial order information is proposed to be maintained via a right fronto-parietal serial order processing network, and activation in these different networks is proposed to be coordinated and maintained via a left fronto-parietal attention processing network. This framework provides new perspectives for our understanding of information maintenance at the non-word-, word- and sentence-level as well as of verbal maintenance deficits in case of brain injury.

Language repetition and short-term memory: an integrative framework

PubMed Central

Majerus, Steve

2013-01-01

Short-term maintenance of verbal information is a core factor of language repetition, especially when reproducing multiple or unfamiliar stimuli. Many models of language processing locate the verbal short-term maintenance function in the left posterior superior temporo-parietal area and its connections with the inferior frontal gyrus. However, research in the field of short-term memory has implicated bilateral fronto-parietal networks, involved in attention and serial order processing, as being critical for the maintenance and reproduction of verbal sequences. We present here an integrative framework aimed at bridging research in the language processing and short-term memory fields. This framework considers verbal short-term maintenance as an emergent function resulting from synchronized and integrated activation in dorsal and ventral language processing networks as well as fronto-parietal attention and serial order processing networks. To-be-maintained item representations are temporarily activated in the dorsal and ventral language processing networks, novel phoneme and word serial order information is proposed to be maintained via a right fronto-parietal serial order processing network, and activation in these different networks is proposed to be coordinated and maintained via a left fronto-parietal attention processing network. This framework provides new perspectives for our understanding of information maintenance at the non-word-, word- and sentence-level as well as of verbal maintenance deficits in case of brain injury. PMID:23874280

Verbal task demands are key in explaining the relationship between paired-associate learning and reading ability.

PubMed

Clayton, Francina J; Sears, Claire; Davis, Alice; Hulme, Charles

2018-07-01

Paired-associate learning (PAL) tasks measure the ability to form a novel association between a stimulus and a response. Performance on such tasks is strongly associated with reading ability, and there is increasing evidence that verbal task demands may be critical in explaining this relationship. The current study investigated the relationships between different forms of PAL and reading ability. A total of 97 children aged 8-10 years completed a battery of reading assessments and six different PAL tasks (phoneme-phoneme, visual-phoneme, nonverbal-nonverbal, visual-nonverbal, nonword-nonword, and visual-nonword) involving both familiar phonemes and unfamiliar nonwords. A latent variable path model showed that PAL ability is captured by two correlated latent variables: auditory-articulatory and visual-articulatory. The auditory-articulatory latent variable was the stronger predictor of reading ability, providing support for a verbal account of the PAL-reading relationship. Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Neural substrates of sublexical processing for spelling.

PubMed

DeMarco, Andrew T; Wilson, Stephen M; Rising, Kindle; Rapcsak, Steven Z; Beeson, Pélagie M

2017-01-01

We used fMRI to examine the neural substrates of sublexical phoneme-grapheme conversion during spelling in a group of healthy young adults. Participants performed a writing-to-dictation task involving irregular words (e.g., choir), plausible nonwords (e.g., kroid), and a control task of drawing familiar geometric shapes (e.g., squares). Written production of both irregular words and nonwords engaged a left-hemisphere perisylvian network associated with reading/spelling and phonological processing skills. Effects of lexicality, manifested by increased activation during nonword relative to irregular word spelling, were noted in anterior perisylvian regions (posterior inferior frontal gyrus/operculum/precentral gyrus/insula), and in left ventral occipito-temporal cortex. In addition to enhanced neural responses within domain-specific components of the language network, the increased cognitive demands associated with spelling nonwords engaged domain-general frontoparietal cortical networks involved in selective attention and executive control. These results elucidate the neural substrates of sublexical processing during written language production and complement lesion-deficit correlation studies of phonological agraphia. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A challenging dissociation in masked identity priming with the lexical decision task.

PubMed

Perea, Manuel; Jiménez, María; Gómez, Pablo

2014-05-01

The masked priming technique has been used extensively to explore the early stages of visual-word recognition. One key phenomenon in masked priming lexical decision is that identity priming is robust for words, whereas it is small/unreliable for nonwords. This dissociation has usually been explained on the basis that masked priming effects are lexical in nature, and hence there should not be an identity prime facilitation for nonwords. We present two experiments whose results are at odds with the assumption made by models that postulate that identity priming is purely lexical, and also challenge the assumption that word and nonword responses are based on the same information. Our experiments revealed that for nonwords, but not for words, matched-case identity PRIME-TARGET pairs were responded to faster than mismatched-case identity prime-TARGET pairs, and this phenomenon was not modulated by the lowercase/uppercase feature similarity of the stimuli. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Neural Substrates of Sublexical Processing for Spelling

PubMed Central

Wilson, Stephen M.; Rising, Kindle; Rapcsak, Steven Z.; Beeson, Pélagie M.

2016-01-01

We used fMRI to examine the neural substrates of sublexical phoneme-grapheme conversion during spelling in a group of healthy young adults. Participants performed a writing-to-dictation task involving irregular words (e.g., choir), plausible nonwords (e.g., kroid), and a control task of drawing familiar geometric shapes (e.g., squares). Written production of both irregular words and nonwords engaged a left-hemisphere perisylvian network associated with reading/spelling and phonological processing skills. Effects of lexicality, manifested by increased activation during nonword relative to irregular word spelling, were noted in anterior perisylvian regions (posterior inferior frontal gyrus/operculum/precentral gyrus/insula), and in left ventral occipito-temporal cortex. In addition to enhanced neural responses within domain-specific components of the language network, the increased cognitive demands associated with spelling nonwords engaged domain-general frontoparietal cortical networks involved in selective attention and executive control. These results elucidate the neural substrates of sublexical processing during written language production and complement lesion-deficit correlation studies of phonological agraphia. PMID:27838547

Masked Inhibitory Priming in English: Evidence for Lexical Inhibition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Davis, Colin J.; Lupker, Stephen J.

2006-01-01

Predictions derived from the interactive activation (IA) model were tested in 3 experiments using the masked priming technique in the lexical decision task. Experiment 1 showed a strong effect of prime lexicality: Classifications of target words were facilitated by orthographically related nonword primes (relative to unrelated nonword primes) but…

Transposed-Letter and Laterality Effects in Lexical Decision

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Perea, Manuel; Fraga, Isabel

2006-01-01

Two divided visual field lexical decision experiments were conducted to examine the role of the cerebral hemispheres in transposed-letter similarity effects. In Experiment 1, we created two types of nonwords: nonadjacent transposed-letter nonwords ("TRADEGIA"; the base word was "TRAGEDIA," the Spanish for "TRAGEDY") and two-letter different…

The consequences of language proficiency and difficulty of lexical access for translation performance and priming.

PubMed

Francis, Wendy S; Tokowicz, Natasha; Kroll, Judith F

2014-01-01

Repetition priming was used to assess how proficiency and the ease or difficulty of lexical access influence bilingual translation. Two experiments, conducted at different universities with different Spanish-English bilingual populations and materials, showed repetition priming in word translation for same-direction and different-direction repetitions. Experiment 1, conducted in an English-dominant environment, revealed an effect of translation direction but not of direction match, whereas Experiment 2, conducted in a more balanced bilingual environment, showed an effect of direction match but not of translation direction. A combined analysis on the items common to both studies revealed that bilingual proficiency was negatively associated with response time (RT), priming, and the degree of translation asymmetry in RTs and priming. An item analysis showed that item difficulty was positively associated with RTs, priming, and the benefit of same-direction over different-direction repetition. Thus, although both participant accuracy and item accuracy are indices of learning, they have distinct effects on translation RTs and on the learning that is captured by the repetition-priming paradigm.

The Effect of "Massed" Task Repetitions on Complexity, Accuracy and Fluency: Does It Transfer to a New Task?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ahmadian, Mohammad Javad

2011-01-01

To date, research results suggest that task repetition positively affects oral task performance. However, researchers have not yet shown the extension of the benefits of repeating the same task to performance of a new task. This article first provides an overview of the currently available research findings on task repetition and then presents the…

Stimulating Multiple-Demand Cortex Enhances Vocabulary Learning

PubMed Central

Wise, Richard J.S.; Geranmayeh, Fatemeh; Hampshire, Adam

2017-01-01

It is well established that networks within multiple-demand cortex (MDC) become active when diverse skills and behaviors are being learnt. However, their causal role in learning remains to be established. In the present study, we first performed functional magnetic resonance imaging on healthy female and male human participants to confirm that MDC was most active in the initial stages of learning a novel vocabulary, consisting of pronounceable nonwords (pseudowords), each associated with a picture of a real object. We then examined, in healthy female and male human participants, whether repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation of a frontal midline node of the cingulo-opercular MDC affected learning rates specifically during the initial stages of learning. We report that stimulation of this node, but not a control brain region, substantially improved both accuracy and response times during the earliest stage of learning pseudoword–object associations. This stimulation had no effect on the processing of established vocabulary, tested by the accuracy and response times when participants decided whether a real word was accurately paired with a picture of an object. These results provide evidence that noninvasive stimulation to MDC nodes can enhance learning rates, thereby demonstrating their causal role in the learning process. We propose that this causal role makes MDC candidate target for experimental therapeutics; for example, in stroke patients with aphasia attempting to reacquire a vocabulary. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Learning a task involves the brain system within which that specific task becomes established. Therefore, successfully learning a new vocabulary establishes the novel words in the language system. However, there is evidence that in the early stages of learning, networks within multiple-demand cortex (MDC), which control higher cognitive functions, such as working memory, attention, and monitoring of performance, become active. This activity declines once the task is learnt. The present study demonstrated that a node within MDC, located in midline frontal cortex, becomes active during the early stage of learning a novel vocabulary. Importantly, noninvasive brain stimulation of this node improved performance during this stage of learning. This observation demonstrated that MDC activity is important for learning. PMID:28676576

Visual speech alters the discrimination and identification of non-intact auditory speech in children with hearing loss.

PubMed

Jerger, Susan; Damian, Markus F; McAlpine, Rachel P; Abdi, Hervé

2017-03-01

Understanding spoken language is an audiovisual event that depends critically on the ability to discriminate and identify phonemes yet we have little evidence about the role of early auditory experience and visual speech on the development of these fundamental perceptual skills. Objectives of this research were to determine 1) how visual speech influences phoneme discrimination and identification; 2) whether visual speech influences these two processes in a like manner, such that discrimination predicts identification; and 3) how the degree of hearing loss affects this relationship. Such evidence is crucial for developing effective intervention strategies to mitigate the effects of hearing loss on language development. Participants were 58 children with early-onset sensorineural hearing loss (CHL, 53% girls, M = 9;4 yrs) and 58 children with normal hearing (CNH, 53% girls, M = 9;4 yrs). Test items were consonant-vowel (CV) syllables and nonwords with intact visual speech coupled to non-intact auditory speech (excised onsets) as, for example, an intact consonant/rhyme in the visual track (Baa or Baz) coupled to non-intact onset/rhyme in the auditory track (/-B/aa or/-B/az). The items started with an easy-to-speechread/B/or difficult-to-speechread/G/onset and were presented in the auditory (static face) vs. audiovisual (dynamic face) modes. We assessed discrimination for intact vs. non-intact different pairs (e.g., Baa:/-B/aa). We predicted that visual speech would cause the non-intact onset to be perceived as intact and would therefore generate more same-as opposed to different-responses in the audiovisual than auditory mode. We assessed identification by repetition of nonwords with non-intact onsets (e.g.,/-B/az). We predicted that visual speech would cause the non-intact onset to be perceived as intact and would therefore generate more Baz-as opposed to az- responses in the audiovisual than auditory mode. Performance in the audiovisual mode showed more same responses for the intact vs. non-intact different pairs (e.g., Baa:/-B/aa) and more intact onset responses for nonword repetition (Baz for/-B/az). Thus visual speech altered both discrimination and identification in the CHL-to a large extent for the/B/onsets but only minimally for the/G/onsets. The CHL identified the stimuli similarly to the CNH but did not discriminate the stimuli similarly. A bias-free measure of the children's discrimination skills (i.e., d' analysis) revealed that the CHL had greater difficulty discriminating intact from non-intact speech in both modes. As the degree of HL worsened, the ability to discriminate the intact vs. non-intact onsets in the auditory mode worsened. Discrimination ability in CHL significantly predicted their identification of the onsets-even after variation due to the other variables was controlled. These results clearly established that visual speech can fill in non-intact auditory speech, and this effect, in turn, made the non-intact onsets more difficult to discriminate from intact speech and more likely to be perceived as intact. Such results 1) demonstrate the value of visual speech at multiple levels of linguistic processing and 2) support intervention programs that view visual speech as a powerful asset for developing spoken language in CHL. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Visual Speech Alters the Discrimination and Identification of Non-Intact Auditory Speech in Children with Hearing Loss

PubMed Central

Jerger, Susan; Damian, Markus F.; McAlpine, Rachel P.; Abdi, Hervé

2017-01-01

Objectives Understanding spoken language is an audiovisual event that depends critically on the ability to discriminate and identify phonemes yet we have little evidence about the role of early auditory experience and visual speech on the development of these fundamental perceptual skills. Objectives of this research were to determine 1) how visual speech influences phoneme discrimination and identification; 2) whether visual speech influences these two processes in a like manner, such that discrimination predicts identification; and 3) how the degree of hearing loss affects this relationship. Such evidence is crucial for developing effective intervention strategies to mitigate the effects of hearing loss on language development. Methods Participants were 58 children with early-onset sensorineural hearing loss (CHL, 53% girls, M = 9;4 yrs) and 58 children with normal hearing (CNH, 53% girls, M = 9;4 yrs). Test items were consonant-vowel (CV) syllables and nonwords with intact visual speech coupled to non-intact auditory speech (excised onsets) as, for example, an intact consonant/rhyme in the visual track (Baa or Baz) coupled to non-intact onset/rhyme in the auditory track (/–B/aa or /–B/az). The items started with an easy-to-speechread /B/ or difficult-to-speechread /G/ onset and were presented in the auditory (static face) vs. audiovisual (dynamic face) modes. We assessed discrimination for intact vs. non-intact different pairs (e.g., Baa:/–B/aa). We predicted that visual speech would cause the non-intact onset to be perceived as intact and would therefore generate more same—as opposed to different—responses in the audiovisual than auditory mode. We assessed identification by repetition of nonwords with non-intact onsets (e.g., /–B/az). We predicted that visual speech would cause the non-intact onset to be perceived as intact and would therefore generate more Baz—as opposed to az— responses in the audiovisual than auditory mode. Results Performance in the audiovisual mode showed more same responses for the intact vs. non-intact different pairs (e.g., Baa:/–B/aa) and more intact onset responses for nonword repetition (Baz for/–B/az). Thus visual speech altered both discrimination and identification in the CHL—to a large extent for the /B/ onsets but only minimally for the /G/ onsets. The CHL identified the stimuli similarly to the CNH but did not discriminate the stimuli similarly. A bias-free measure of the children’s discrimination skills (i.e., d’ analysis) revealed that the CHL had greater difficulty discriminating intact from non-intact speech in both modes. As the degree of HL worsened, the ability to discriminate the intact vs. non-intact onsets in the auditory mode worsened. Discrimination ability in CHL significantly predicted their identification of the onsets—even after variation due to the other variables was controlled. Conclusions These results clearly established that visual speech can fill in non-intact auditory speech, and this effect, in turn, made the non-intact onsets more difficult to discriminate from intact speech and more likely to be perceived as intact. Such results 1) demonstrate the value of visual speech at multiple levels of linguistic processing and 2) support intervention programs that view visual speech as a powerful asset for developing spoken language in CHL. PMID:28167003

Scoring Yes-No Vocabulary Tests: Reaction Time vs. Nonword Approaches

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pellicer-Sanchez, Ana; Schmitt, Norbert

2012-01-01

Despite a number of research studies investigating the Yes-No vocabulary test format, one main question remains unanswered: What is the best scoring procedure to adjust for testee overestimation of vocabulary knowledge? Different scoring methodologies have been proposed based on the inclusion and selection of nonwords in the test. However, there…

Articulation of Phonologically Similar Items Disrupts Free Recall of Nonwords

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nishiyama, Ryoji; Ukita, Jun

2013-01-01

The present study sought to clarify whether phonological similarity of encoded information impairs free recall performance (the phonological similarity effect: PSE) for nonwords. Five experiments examined the influence of the encoding process on the PSE in a step-by-step fashion, by using lists that consisted of phonologically similar (decoy)…

Development of Orthographic Knowledge in German-Speaking Children: A 2-Year Longitudinal Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ise, Elena; Arnoldi, Carolin Judith; Schulte-Körne, Gerd

2014-01-01

There is growing evidence that children develop orthographic knowledge from the very beginning of literacy acquisition. This study investigated the development of German-speaking children's orthographic knowledge with a nonword choice task. One nonword in each pair contained a frequent consonant doublet ("zommul") and the other…

Can "CANISO" Activate "CASINO"? Transposed-Letter Similarity Effects with Nonadjacent Letter Positions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Perea, Manuel; Lupker, Stephen J.

2004-01-01

Nonwords created by transposing two "adjacent" letters (i.e., transposed-letter (TL) nonwords like "jugde") are very effective at activating the lexical representation of their base words. This fact poses problems for most computational models of word recognition (e.g., the interactive-activation model and its extensions), which assume that exact…

Associations among measures of sequential processing in motor and linguistics tasks in adults with and without a family history of childhood apraxia of speech: a replication study.

PubMed

Button, Le; Peter, Beate; Stoel-Gammon, Carol; Raskind, Wendy H

2013-03-01

The purpose of this study was to address the hypothesis that childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is influenced by an underlying deficit in sequential processing that is also expressed in other modalities. In a sample of 21 adults from five multigenerational families, 11 with histories of various familial speech sound disorders, 3 biologically related adults from a family with familial CAS showed motor sequencing deficits in an alternating motor speech task. Compared with the other adults, these three participants showed deficits in tasks requiring high loads of sequential processing, including nonword imitation, nonword reading and spelling. Qualitative error analyses in real word and nonword imitations revealed group differences in phoneme sequencing errors. Motor sequencing ability was correlated with phoneme sequencing errors during real word and nonword imitation, reading and spelling. Correlations were characterized by extremely high scores in one family and extremely low scores in another. Results are consistent with a central deficit in sequential processing in CAS of familial origin.

Associations among measures of sequential processing in motor and linguistics tasks in adults with and without a family history of childhood apraxia of speech: A replication study

PubMed Central

BUTTON, LE; PETER, BEATE; STOEL-GAMMON, CAROL; RASKIND, WENDY H.

2013-01-01

The purpose of this study was to address the hypothesis that childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is influenced by an underlying deficit in sequential processing that is also expressed in other modalities. In a sample of 21 adults from five multigenerational families, 11 with histories of various familial speech sound disorders, 3 biologically related adults from a family with familial CAS showed motor sequencing deficits in an alternating motor speech task. Compared with the other adults, these three participants showed deficits in tasks requiring high loads of sequential processing, including nonword imitation, nonword reading and spelling. Qualitative error analyses in real word and nonword imitations revealed group differences in phoneme sequencing errors. Motor sequencing ability was correlated with phoneme sequencing errors during real word and nonword imitation, reading and spelling. Correlations were characterized by extremely high scores in one family and extremely low scores in another. Results are consistent with a central deficit in sequential processing in CAS of familial origin. PMID:23339292

Cross-Linguistic Influence in the Bilingual Mental Lexicon: Evidence of Cognate Effects in the Phonetic Production and Processing of a Vowel Contrast

PubMed Central

Amengual, Mark

2016-01-01

The present study examines cognate effects in the phonetic production and processing of the Catalan back mid-vowel contrast (/o/-/ɔ/) by 24 early and highly proficient Spanish-Catalan bilinguals in Majorca (Spain). Participants completed a picture-naming task and a forced-choice lexical decision task in which they were presented with either words (e.g., /bɔsk/ “forest”) or non-words based on real words, but with the alternate mid-vowel pair in stressed position (*/bosk/). The same cognate and non-cognate lexical items were included in the production and lexical decision experiments. The results indicate that even though these early bilinguals maintained the back mid-vowel contrast in their productions, they had great difficulties identifying non-words and real words based on the identity of the Catalan mid-vowel. The analyses revealed language dominance and cognate effects: Spanish-dominants exhibited higher error rates than Catalan-dominants, and production and lexical decision accuracy were also affected by cognate status. The present study contributes to the discussion of the organization of early bilinguals' dominant and non-dominant sound systems, and proposes that exemplar theoretic approaches can be extended to include bilingual lexical connections that account for the interactions between the phonetic and lexical levels of early bilingual individuals. PMID:27199849

Development of a language screening instrument for Swedish 4-year-olds.

PubMed

Lavesson, Ann; Lövdén, Martin; Hansson, Kristina

2018-05-01

The Swedish Program for health surveillance of preschool children includes screening of language and communication abilities. One important language screening is carried out at age 4 years as part of a general screening conducted by health nurses at child health centres. The instruments presently in use for this screening mainly focus on expressive phonology. This may result in both over-referral of children with phonological difficulties and under-referral of children with language disorders (LDs), involving difficulties with vocabulary, grammar and/or language comprehension. Previous research has proposed non-word repetition as a clinical marker for LD. It has also been found that higher predictive power is achieved when non-word repetition is combined with the assessment of lexical/semantic skills. Taking these findings into account, the construction of a language screening instrument may yield more adequate referrals to speech-language therapists (SLTs). To construct a new standardized language screening instrument for 4-year-olds and to test its properties. An instrument was developed and revised after piloting. A population of 352 children was screened at the regular 4-year check-up by 11 health nurses. The final sample consisted of 328 children aged 46-53 months (23% multilingual). Children performing below a preliminary cut-off were referred to an SLT (n = 52). Five SLTs carried out an assessment on average within 5 weeks using a gold standard language test battery. Children who screened negatively were followed up with a parent questionnaire at age 5;6. Thirty-one true-positives and 11 false-positives were identified after SLT assessment. A further six children were identified as false-negatives (two through referral to an SLT and four through parent questionnaire at age 5;6). A receiver-operating characteristics curve with a C statistic of .94 was calculated. Based on optimal cut-off, the sensitivity of the screening instrument was found to be .84, and specificity was .96. Multilingual children performed similar to monolingual children; boys performed significantly lower than girls; and children with a family history of language-related problems performed lower than those without. Interrater reliability was high, as was Cronbach's alpha. The screening instrument seems sufficiently valid for its purpose to identify children who need further assessment by an SLT. A follow-up study including SLT assessment for all children to check for false-negatives would be interesting in future, as would studies comparing results from the 4-year screening with those from earlier screens. © 2018 Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.

Reading Orthographically Strange Nonwords: Modelling Backup Strategies in Reading

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Perry, Conrad

2018-01-01

The latest version of the connectionist dual process model of reading (CDP++.parser) was tested on a set of nonwords, many of which were orthographically strange (e.g., PSIZ). A grapheme-by-grapheme read-out strategy was used because the normal strategy produced many poor responses. The new strategy allowed the model to produce results similar to…

Relationships Between Memory and Reading. Final Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stanners, Robert S.

The purpose of Experiment I was to investigate the context effect of letter perception for nonword material. The significance of finding a context effect for nonwords would be that the basis of the effect would have to be a product of a person's knowledge of the phonological or orthographic structure of the language rather than attributable to a…

Nonword Reading: Comparing Dual-Route Cascaded and Connectionist Dual-Process Models with Human Data

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pritchard, Stephen C.; Coltheart, Max; Palethorpe, Sallyanne; Castles, Anne

2012-01-01

Two prominent dual-route computational models of reading aloud are the dual-route cascaded (DRC) model, and the connectionist dual-process plus (CDP+) model. While sharing similarly designed lexical routes, the two models differ greatly in their respective nonlexical route architecture, such that they often differ on nonword pronunciation. Neither…

African American English Dialect and Performance on Nonword Spelling and Phonemic Awareness Tasks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kohler, Candida T.; Bahr, Ruth Huntley; Silliman, Elaine R.; Bryant, Judith Becker; Apel, Kenn; Wilkinson, Louise C.

2007-01-01

Purpose: To evaluate the role of dialect on phonemic awareness and nonword spelling tasks. These tasks were selected for their reliance on phonological and orthographic processing, which may be influenced by dialect use. Method: Eighty typically developing African American children in Grades 1 and 3 were first screened for dialect use and then…

Fully Transparent Orthography, yet Lexical Reading Aloud: The Lexicality Effect in Italian

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pagliuca, Giovanni; Arduino, Lisa S.; Barca, Laura; Burani, Cristina

2008-01-01

This is the first study that reports the lexicality effect (i.e., words read better than nonwords) in Italian with fully transparent and methodologically well-controlled stimuli. We investigated how words and nonwords are read aloud in the Italian transparent orthography, in which there is an almost strict one-to-one correspondence between…

The Role of Elicited Verbal Imitation in Toddlers' Word Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hodges, Rosemary; Munro, Natalie; Baker, Elise; McGregor, Karla; Docking, Kimberley; Arciuli, Joanne

2016-01-01

This study is about the role of elicited verbal imitation in toddler word learning. Forty-eight toddlers were taught eight nonwords linked to referents. During training, they were asked to imitate the nonwords. Naming of the referents was tested at three intervals (one minute later [uncued], five minutes, and 1-7 days later [cued]) and recognition…

How African American English-Speaking First Graders Segment and Rhyme Words and Nonwords with Final Consonant Clusters

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shollenbarger, Amy J.; Robinson, Gregory C.; Taran, Valentina; Choi, Seo-eun

2017-01-01

Purpose: This study explored how typically developing 1st grade African American English (AAE) speakers differ from mainstream American English (MAE) speakers in the completion of 2 common phonological awareness tasks (rhyming and phoneme segmentation) when the stimulus items were consonant-vowel-consonant-consonant (CVCC) words and nonwords.…

Word and Nonword Processing without Meaning Support in Korean-Speaking Children with and without Hyperlexia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Sung Hee; Hwang, Mina

2015-01-01

Hyperlexia is a syndrome of reading without meaning in individuals who otherwise have pronounced cognitive and language deficits. The present study investigated the quality of word representation and the effects of deficient semantic processing on word and nonword reading of Korean children with hyperlexia; their performances were compared to…

Featuring Old/New Recognition: The Two Faces of the Pseudoword Effect

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Joordens, Steve; Ozubko, Jason D.; Niewiadomski, Marty W.

2008-01-01

In his analysis of the pseudoword effect, [Greene, R.L. (2004). Recognition memory for pseudowords. "Journal of Memory and Language," 50, 259-267.] suggests nonwords can feel more familiar that words in a recognition context if the orthographic features of the nonword match well with the features of the items presented at study. One possible…

The Effects of Cognitive: Linguistic Variables and Language Experience on Behavioural and Kinematic Performances in Nonword Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sasisekaran, Jayanthi; Weisberg, Sanford

2013-01-01

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of cognitive-linguistic variables and language experience on behavioral and kinematic measures of nonword learning in young adults. Group 1 consisted of thirteen participants who spoke American English as the first and only language. Group 2 consisted of seven participants with varying…

Limitations of the Dual-Process-Theory regarding the Writing of Words and Non-Words to Dictation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tucha, Oliver; Trumpp, Christian; Lange, Klaus W.

2004-01-01

It is generally assumed that the lexical and phonological systems are involved in writing to dictation. In an experiment concerned with the writing of words and non-words to dictation, the handwriting of female students was registered using a digitising tablet. The data contradict the assumption that the phonological system represents an alexical…

Repetition Blindness Reveals Differences between the Representations of Manipulable and Nonmanipulable Objects

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Harris, Irina M.; Murray, Alexandra M.; Hayward, William G.; O'Callaghan, Claire; Andrews, Sally

2012-01-01

We used repetition blindness to investigate the nature of the representations underlying identification of manipulable objects. Observers named objects presented in rapid serial visual presentation streams containing either manipulable or nonmanipulable objects. In half the streams, 1 object was repeated. Overall accuracy was lower when streams…

SU-E-T-460: Impact of the LINAC Repetition Rate On a High-Resolution Liquid Ionization Chamber Array for Patient-Specific QA

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Wang, S; Driewer, J; Zheng, D

2015-06-15

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the LINAC repetition-rate (dose-rate) dependence of OCTAVIUS 1000SRS liquid ionization chamber (LIC) array for patient specific QA of SRT plans delivered with flattening-filter-free (FFF) beams. Methods: 1) The repetition-rate dependence of 1000SRS was measured in a phantom constructed with 5-cm solid water above and below the array for build-up and backscatter. A 0.3cc calibrated ion chamber was also placed along the central axis 2.3cm below the center chamber of the array for normalizing LINAC output fluctuation. The signals from the center chamber of the array under different repetition rates in themore » range of 400–2400 MU/min for 6xFFF and 10xFFF beams on a Varian TrueBeamSTx LINAC, normalized by the independent chamber readings, were analyzed for the array response dependence on repetition rates. 2) Twelve Step-and-shoot IMRS QA plans (6xFFF and 10xFFF) were delivered to the array under different repetition rates for analysis and comparison. 3) The absolute doses measured by the center chamber were compared to measurements using an independent ionization chamber with the identical setup, taken as the gold standard. 4) The correction factors based on the actual delivery repetition rate were applied to the measurements, and the results were compared again to the gold standard. Results: 1) The 1000SRS array exhibited repetition-rate dependence for FFF beams, up to 5% for 6xFFF and 10% for 10xFFF; 2) The array showed clinically-acceptable repetition-rate dependence for regular flattened beams; 3) This repetition-rate dependence significantly affected the measurement accuracy, thereby affecting IMRS QA results; 4) By applying an empirical repetition-rate correction, the corrected measurements agreed better with the gold standard ion chamber measurements. Conclusion: OCTAVIUS 1000SRS LIC array exhibited considerable repetition-rate dependence for FFF beams, which will affect the accuracy of the absolute QA measurements, especially for IMRS plans with the step-and-shoot technique.« less

The Relationship between Semantic Short-Term Memory and Immediate Serial Recall of Known and Unknown Words and Nonwords: Data from Two Chinese Individuals with Aphasia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wong, Winsy; Low, Sam-Po

2008-01-01

The present study investigated verbal recall of semantically preserved and degraded words and nonwords by taking into consideration the status of one's semantic short-term memory (STM). Two experiments were conducted on 2 Chinese individuals with aphasia. The first experiment showed that they had largely preserved phonological processing abilities…

Verbal Short-Term Memory Reflects the Sublexical Organization of the Phonological Language Network: Evidence from an Incidental Phonotactic Learning Paradigm

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Majerus, Steve; Van der Linden; Martial; Mulder, Ludivine; Meulemans, Thierry; Peters, Frederic

2004-01-01

The nonword phonotactic frequency effect in verbal short-term memory (STM) is characterized by superior recall for nonwords containing familiar as opposed to less familiar phoneme associations. This effect is supposed to reflect the intervention of phonological long-term memory (LTM) in STM. However the lexical or sublexical nature of this LTM…

The nature of orthographic learning in self-teaching: Testing the extent of transfer.

PubMed

Tucker, Rebecca; Castles, Anne; Laroche, Annie; Deacon, S Hélène

2016-05-01

The current study was designed to test how orthographic learning, or the learning of the spelling patterns of words, happens within the self-teaching paradigm. One possibility is that orthographic learning occurs on a word-specific basis. Two other possibilities are that orthographic learning transfers specifically to the processing of novel words that are morphologically related or that it transfers to novel words that are orthographically similar, regardless of morphological relationship. In an orthographic learning paradigm, we asked children in Grades 3 and 5 to read nonwords embedded in short stories. In a between-participants design, some children read nonwords that were base forms, others read nonwords that were morphologically complex forms, and others read nonwords that were orthographically complex forms (e.g., feap, feaper, and feaple, respectively). Children completed an orthographic choice task with the same items as in the stories. To evaluate transfer of learning, children also completed orthographic choices for the two forms of the nonwords not seen in the stories. Results indicated that children's orthographic learning affected processing of novel items that appeared to be morphologically related as well as those that shared only orthographic structure (e.g., both feaper and feaple). Additional analyses showed that these effects were held across cases when children did and did not successfully decode the novel words in the learning experience, although successful decoding did lead to higher levels of orthographic learning and transfer. Together, the findings suggest that children's prior experiences affect their processing of novel words that share orthographic similarity, likely reflecting a role for orthographic analogies in the self-teaching process. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

First- and second-language phonological representations in the mental lexicon.

PubMed

Sebastian-Gallés, Núria; Rodríguez-Fornells, Antoni; de Diego-Balaguer, Ruth; Díaz, Begoña

2006-08-01

Performance-based studies on the psychological nature of linguistic competence can conceal significant differences in the brain processes that underlie native versus nonnative knowledge of language. Here we report results from the brain activity of very proficient early bilinguals making a lexical decision task that illustrates this point. Two groups of Spanish-Catalan early bilinguals (Spanish-dominant and Catalan-dominant) were asked to decide whether a given form was a Catalan word or not. The nonwords were based on real words, with one vowel changed. In the experimental stimuli, the vowel change involved a Catalan-specific contrast that previous research had shown to be difficult for Spanish natives to perceive. In the control stimuli, the vowel switch involved contrasts common to Spanish and Catalan. The results indicated that the groups of bilinguals did not differ in their behavioral and event-related brain potential measurements for the control stimuli; both groups made very few errors and showed a larger N400 component for control nonwords than for control words. However, significant differences were observed for the experimental stimuli across groups: Specifically, Spanish-dominant bilinguals showed great difficulty in rejecting experimental nonwords. Indeed, these participants not only showed very high error rates for these stimuli, but also did not show an error-related negativity effect in their erroneous nonword decisions. However, both groups of bilinguals showed a larger correct-related negativity when making correct decisions about the experimental nonwords. The results suggest that although some aspects of a second language system may show a remarkable lack of plasticity (like the acquisition of some foreign contrasts), first-language representations seem to be more dynamic in their capacity of adapting and incorporating new information.

Word Processing in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders: Evidence From Event-Related Potentials.

PubMed

Sandbank, Micheal; Yoder, Paul; Key, Alexandra P

2017-12-20

This investigation was conducted to determine whether young children with autism spectrum disorders exhibited a canonical neural response to word stimuli and whether putative event-related potential (ERP) measures of word processing were correlated with a concurrent measure of receptive language. Additional exploratory analyses were used to examine whether the magnitude of the association between ERP measures of word processing and receptive language varied as a function of the number of word stimuli the participants reportedly understood. Auditory ERPs were recorded in response to spoken words and nonwords presented with equal probability in 34 children aged 2-5 years with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder who were in the early stages of language acquisition. Average amplitudes and amplitude differences between word and nonword stimuli within 200-500 ms were examined at left temporal (T3) and parietal (P3) electrode clusters. Receptive vocabulary size and the number of experimental stimuli understood were concurrently measured using the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories. Across the entire participant group, word-nonword amplitude differences were diminished. The average word-nonword amplitude difference at T3 was related to receptive vocabulary only if 5 or more word stimuli were understood. If ERPs are to ever have clinical utility, their construct validity must be established by investigations that confirm their associations with predictably related constructs. These results contribute to accruing evidence, suggesting that a valid measure of auditory word processing can be derived from the left temporal response to words and nonwords. In addition, this measure can be useful even for participants who do not reportedly understand all of the words presented as experimental stimuli, though it will be important for researchers to track familiarity with word stimuli in future investigations. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.5614840.

Nicotine patches improve mood and response speed in a lexical decision task.

PubMed

Gentry, M V; Hammersley, J J; Hale, C R; Nuwer, P K; Meliska, C J

2000-01-01

The effects of smoking a cigarette or wearing a transdermal nicotine patch on mood and lexical decision-making were tested in eight smokers. Each participant was tested after 4 hours of smoking abstinence, under 4 conditions: placebo (very low nicotine) cigarette, nicotine cigarette, placebo patch, and nicotine patch. Relative to placebo, wearing the nicotine patch reduced Profile of Mood States (POMS) Total Mood Disturbance and Fatigue/Inertia scores, while increasing the speed of some types of lexical decisions. Smoking a nicotine cigarette did not affect reaction times, but unexpectedly decreased the accuracy of Word/ Nonword lexical decisions. Thus, transdermal nicotine may improve mood and facilitate longterm memory search and/or attentional processes in nicotine-deprived smokers.

Understanding neural system dynamics through task modulation and measurement of functional MRI amplitude, latency, and width

PubMed Central

Bellgowan, P. S. F.; Saad, Z. S.; Bandettini, P. A.

2003-01-01

Estimates of hemodynamic amplitude, delay, and width were combined to investigate system dynamics involved in lexical decision making. Subjects performed a lexical decision task using word and nonword stimuli rotated 0°, 60°, or 120°. Averaged hemodynamic responses to repeated stimulation were fit to a Gamma-variate function convolved with a heavyside function of varying onset and duration to estimate each voxel's activation delay and width. Consistent with prolonged reaction times for the rotated stimuli and nonwords, the motor cortex showed delayed hemodynamic onset for both conditions. Language areas such as the lingual gyrus, middle temporal gyrus, fusiform gyrus, and precuneus all showed delayed hemodynamic onsets to rotated stimuli but not to nonword stimuli. The inferior frontal gyrus showed both increased onset latency for rotated stimuli and a wider hemodynamic response to nonwords, consistent with prolonged processing in this area during the lexical decision task. Phonological processing areas such as superior temporal and angular gyrus showed no delay or width difference for rotated stimuli. These results suggest that phonological routes but not semantic routes to the lexicon can proceed regardless of stimulus orientation. This study demonstrates the utility of estimating hemodynamic delay and width in addition to amplitude allowing for more quantitative measures of brain function such as mental chronometry. PMID:12552093

Distinct Patterns of Neural Activity during Memory Formation of Nonwords versus Words

PubMed Central

Otten, Leun J.; Sveen, Josefin; Quayle, Angela H.

2008-01-01

Research into the neural underpinnings of memory formation has focused on the encoding of familiar verbal information. Here, we address how the brain supports the encoding of novel information that does not have meaning. Electrical brain activity was recorded from the scalps of healthy young adults while they performed an incidental encoding task (syllable judgments) on separate series of words and ‘nonwords’ (nonsense letter strings that are orthographically legal and pronounceable). Memory for the items was then probed with a recognition memory test. For words as well as nonwords, event-related potentials differed depending on whether an item would subsequently be remembered or forgotten. However, the polarity and timing of the effect varied across item type. For words, subsequently remembered items showed the usually observed positive-going, frontally-distributed modulation from around 600 ms after word onset. For nonwords, by contrast, a negative-going, spatially widespread modulation predicted encoding success from 1000 ms onwards. Nonwords also showed a modulation shortly after item onset. These findings imply that the brain supports the encoding of familiar and unfamiliar letter strings in qualitatively different ways, including the engagement of distinct neural activity at different points in time. The processing of semantic attributes plays an important role in the encoding of words and the associated positive frontal modulation. PMID:17958481

Surface developmental dyslexia is as prevalent as phonological dyslexia when appropriate control groups are employed.

PubMed

Wybrow, Dean P; Hanley, J Richard

2015-01-01

Previous investigations of the incidence of developmental surface and phonological dyslexia using reading-age-matched control groups have identified many more phonological dyslexics (poor nonword reading relative to irregular-word reading) than surface dyslexics (poor irregular-word reading relative to nonword reading). However, because the measures that have been used to estimate reading age include irregular-word reading ability, they appear inappropriate for assessing the incidence of surface dyslexia. The current study used a novel method for generating control groups whose reading ability was matched to that of the dyslexic sample. The incidence of surface dyslexia was assessed by comparing dyslexic performance with that of a control group who were matched with the dyslexics on a test of nonword reading. The incidence of phonological dyslexia was assessed with reference to a control group who were matched with the dyslexics at irregular-word reading. These control groups led to the identification of an approximately equal number of children with surface and phonological dyslexia. It appeared that selecting control participants who were matched with dyslexics for reading age led to the recruitment of individuals with relatively high nonword reading scores relative to their irregular-word reading scores compared with other types of control group. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.

Separating the influences of prereading skills on early word and nonword reading.

PubMed

Shapiro, Laura R; Carroll, Julia M; Solity, Jonathan E

2013-10-01

The essential first step for a beginning reader is to learn to match printed forms to phonological representations. For a new word, this is an effortful process where each grapheme must be translated individually (serial decoding). The role of phonological awareness in developing a decoding strategy is well known. We examined whether beginning readers recruit different skills depending on the nature of the words being read (familiar words vs. nonwords). Print knowledge, phoneme and rhyme awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN), phonological short-term memory (STM), nonverbal reasoning, vocabulary, auditory skills, and visual attention were measured in 392 prereaders 4 and 5 years of age. Word and nonword reading were measured 9 months later. We used structural equation modeling to examine the skills-reading relationship and modeled correlations between our two reading outcomes and among all prereading skills. We found that a broad range of skills were associated with reading outcomes: early print knowledge, phonological STM, phoneme awareness and RAN. Whereas all of these skills were directly predictive of nonword reading, early print knowledge was the only direct predictor of word reading. Our findings suggest that beginning readers draw most heavily on their existing print knowledge to read familiar words. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Acquisition of English word stress patterns in early and late bilinguals

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guion, Susan G.

2004-05-01

Given early acquisition of prosodic knowledge as demonstrated by infants' sensitivity to native language accentual patterns, the question of whether learners can acquire new prosodic patterns across the life span arises. Acquisition of English stress by early and late Spanish-English and Korean-English bilinguals was investigated. In a production task, two-syllable nonwords were produced in noun and verb sentence frames. In a perception task, preference for first or last syllable stress on the nonwords was indicated. Also, real words that were phonologically similar to the nonwords were collected. Logistic regression analyses and ANOVAs were conducted to determine the effect of three factors (syllable structure, lexical class, and stress patterns of phonologically similar words) on the production and perception responses. In all three groups, stress patterns of phonologically similar real words predicted stress on nonwords. For the two other factors, early bilinguals patterned similarly to the native-English participants. Late Spanish-English bilinguals demonstrated less learning of stress patterns based on syllabic structure, and late Korean-English bilinguals demonstrated less learning of stress patterns based on lexical class than native-English speakers. Thus, compared to native speakers, late bilinguals' ability to abstract stress patterns is reduced and affected by the first language. [Work supported by NIH.

Does temporal contiguity moderate contingency learning in a speeded performance task?

PubMed

Schmidt, James R; De Houwer, Jan

2012-01-01

In four experiments, we varied the time between the onset of distracting nonwords and target colour words in a word-word version of the colour-word contingency learning paradigm. Contingencies were created by pairing a distractor nonword more often with one target colour word than with other colour words. A contingency effect corresponds to faster responses to the target colour word on high-contingency trials (i.e., distractor nonword followed by the target colour word with which it appears most often) than on low-contingency trials (i.e., distractor nonword followed by a target colour word with which it appears only occasionally). Roughly equivalent-sized contingency effects were found at stimulus-onset asynchronies (SOAs) of 50, 250, and 450 ms in Experiment 1, and 50, 500, and 1,000 ms in Experiment 2. In Experiment 3, a contingency effect was observed at SOAs of -50, -200, and -350 ms. In Experiment 4, interstimulus interval (ISI) was varied along with SOA, and learning was equivalent for 200-, 700-, and 1,200-ms SOAs. Together, these experiments suggest that the distracting stimulus does not need to be presented in close temporal contiguity with the response to induce learning. Relations to past research on causal judgement and implications for further contingency learning research are discussed.

The reward of seeing: Different types of visual reward and their ability to modify oculomotor learning.

PubMed

Meermeier, Annegret; Gremmler, Svenja; Richert, Kerstin; Eckermann, Til; Lappe, Markus

2017-10-01

Saccadic adaptation is an oculomotor learning process that maintains the accuracy of eye movements to ensure effective perception of the environment. Although saccadic adaptation is commonly considered an automatic and low-level motor calibration in the cerebellum, we recently found that strength of adaptation is influenced by the visual content of the target: pictures of humans produced stronger adaptation than noise stimuli. This suggests that meaningful images may be considered rewarding or valuable in oculomotor learning. Here we report three experiments that establish the boundaries of this effect. In the first, we tested whether stimuli that were associated with high and low value following long term self-administered reinforcement learning produce stronger adaptation. Twenty-eight expert gamers participated in two sessions of adaptation to game-related high- and low-reward stimuli, but revealed no difference in saccadic adaptation (Bayes Factor01 = 5.49). In the second experiment, we tested whether cognitive (literate) meaning could induce stronger adaptation by comparing targets consisting of words and nonwords. The results of twenty subjects revealed no difference in adaptation strength (Bayes Factor01 = 3.21). The third experiment compared images of human figures to noise patterns for reactive saccades. Twenty-two subjects adapted significantly more toward images of human figures in comparison to noise (p < 0.001). We conclude that only primary (human vs. noise), but not secondary, reinforcement affects saccadic adaptation (words vs. nonwords, high- vs. low-value video game images).

Algorithmic Classification of Five Characteristic Types of Paraphasias.

PubMed

Fergadiotis, Gerasimos; Gorman, Kyle; Bedrick, Steven

2016-12-01

This study was intended to evaluate a series of algorithms developed to perform automatic classification of paraphasic errors (formal, semantic, mixed, neologistic, and unrelated errors). We analyzed 7,111 paraphasias from the Moss Aphasia Psycholinguistics Project Database (Mirman et al., 2010) and evaluated the classification accuracy of 3 automated tools. First, we used frequency norms from the SUBTLEXus database (Brysbaert & New, 2009) to differentiate nonword errors and real-word productions. Then we implemented a phonological-similarity algorithm to identify phonologically related real-word errors. Last, we assessed the performance of a semantic-similarity criterion that was based on word2vec (Mikolov, Yih, & Zweig, 2013). Overall, the algorithmic classification replicated human scoring for the major categories of paraphasias studied with high accuracy. The tool that was based on the SUBTLEXus frequency norms was more than 97% accurate in making lexicality judgments. The phonological-similarity criterion was approximately 91% accurate, and the overall classification accuracy of the semantic classifier ranged from 86% to 90%. Overall, the results highlight the potential of tools from the field of natural language processing for the development of highly reliable, cost-effective diagnostic tools suitable for collecting high-quality measurement data for research and clinical purposes.

The influences of task repetition, napping, time of day, and instruction on the Sustained Attention to Response Task.

PubMed

van Schie, Mojca K M; Alblas, Eva E; Thijs, Roland D; Fronczek, Rolf; Lammers, Gert Jan; van Dijk, J Gert

2014-01-01

The Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) helps to quantify vigilance impairments.Previous studies, in which five SART sessions on one day were administered, demonstrated worse performance during the first session than during the others. The present study comprises two experiments to identify a cause of this phenomenon. Experiment 1, counting eighty healthy participants, assessed effects of repetition,napping, and time of day on SART performance through a between-groups design. The SART was performed twice in the morning or twice in the afternoon; half of the participants took a 20-minute nap before the second SART. A strong correlation between error count and reaction time (RT) suggested effects of test instruction. Participants gave equal weight to speed and accuracy in Experiment 1; therefore, results of 20 participants were compared to those of 20 additional participants who were told to prefer accuracy (Experiment 2). The average SART error count in Experiment 1 was 10.1; the median RT was 280 ms. Neither repetition nor napping influenced error count or RT. Time of day did not influence error count, but RT was significantly longer for morning than for afternoon SARTs. The additional participants in Experiment 2 had a 49% lower error count and a 14% higher RT than the participants in Experiment 1. Error counts reduced by 50% from the first to the second session of Experiment 2, irrespective of napping or time of day. Preferring accuracy over speed was associated with a significantly lower error count. The data suggest that a worse performance in the first SART session only occurs when instructing participants to prefer accuracy, which is caused by repetition, not by napping or time of day. We advise that participants are instructed to prefer accuracy over speed when performing the SART and that a full practice session is included.

Age-related differences in brain electrical activity during extended continuous face recognition in younger children, older children and adults.

PubMed

Van Strien, Jan W; Glimmerveen, Johanna C; Franken, Ingmar H A; Martens, Vanessa E G; de Bruin, Eveline A

2011-09-01

To examine the development of recognition memory in primary-school children, 36 healthy younger children (8-9 years old) and 36 healthy older children (11-12 years old) participated in an ERP study with an extended continuous face recognition task (Study 1). Each face of a series of 30 faces was shown randomly six times interspersed with distracter faces. The children were required to make old vs. new decisions. Older children responded faster than younger children, but younger children exhibited a steeper decrease in latencies across the five repetitions. Older children exhibited better accuracy for new faces, but there were no age differences in recognition accuracy for repeated faces. For the N2, N400 and late positive complex (LPC), we analyzed the old/new effects (repetition 1 vs. new presentation) and the extended repetition effects (repetitions 1 through 5). Compared to older children, younger children exhibited larger frontocentral N2 and N400 old/new effects. For extended face repetitions, negativity of the N2 and N400 decreased in a linear fashion in both age groups. For the LPC, an ERP component thought to reflect recollection, no significant old/new or extended repetition effects were found. Employing the same face recognition paradigm in 20 adults (Study 2), we found a significant N400 old/new effect at lateral frontal sites and a significant LPC repetition effect at parietal sites, with LPC amplitudes increasing linearly with the number of repetitions. This study clearly demonstrates differential developmental courses for the N400 and LPC pertaining to recognition memory for faces. It is concluded that face recognition in children is mediated by early and probably more automatic than conscious recognition processes. In adults, the LPC extended repetition effect indicates that adult face recognition memory is related to a conscious and graded recollection process rather than to an automatic recognition process. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Consequences of Co-Occurring Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder on Children's Language Impairments

PubMed Central

Ash, Andrea C.; Hogan, Tiffany P.

2015-01-01

Purpose Co-occurring attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and communication disorders represent a frequently encountered challenge for school-based practitioners. The purpose of the present study was to examine in more detail the clinical phenomenology of co-occurring ADHD and language impairments (LIs). Method Measures of nonword repetition, sentence recall, and tense marking were collected from 57 seven- to nine-year-old children. The performances of children with ADHD+LI status were compared with those of children with specific language impairment (SLI) and children with typical development (TD). Results ADHD status had no independent detrimental impact on the affected children's LIs (SLI = ADHD+LI < TD). A modest positive correlation was found between the severity of children's ADHD symptoms and their sentence recall performance, suggesting a tendency for affected children who had higher levels of ADHD symptoms to perform better than those children with lower levels. Conclusion These outcomes are difficult to reconcile with attention-deficit/information-processing accounts of the core deficits associated with SLI. Potential protective mechanisms associated with ADHD status are discussed. PMID:25381450

Prime Diagnosticity in Short-Term Repetition Priming: Is Primed Evidence Discounted, Even when It Reliably Indicates the Correct Answer?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Weidemann, Christoph T.; Huber, David E.; Shiffrin, Richard M.

2008-01-01

The authors conducted 4 repetition priming experiments that manipulated prime duration and prime diagnosticity in a visual forced-choice perceptual identification task. The strength and direction of prime diagnosticity produced marked effects on identification accuracy, but those effects were resistant to subsequent changes of diagnosticity.…

Metacognitive judgments of repetition and variability effects in natural concept learning: evidence for variability neglect.

PubMed

Wahlheim, Christopher N; Finn, Bridgid; Jacoby, Larry L

2012-07-01

In four experiments, we examined the effects of repetitions and variability on the learning of bird families and metacognitive awareness of such effects. Of particular interest was the accuracy of, and bases for, predictions regarding classification of novel bird species, referred to as category learning judgments (CLJs). Participants studied birds in high repetitions and high variability conditions. These conditions differed in the number of presentations of each bird (repetitions) and the number of unique species from each family (variability). After study, participants made CLJs for each family and were then tested. Results from a classification test revealed repetition benefits for studied species and variability benefits for novel species. In contrast with performance, CLJs did not reflect the benefits of variability. Results showed that CLJs were susceptible to accessibility-based metacognitive illusions produced by additional repetitions of studied items.

Number of repetitions for evaluating technological traits in cotton genotypes.

PubMed

Carvalho, L P; Farias, F J C; Morello, C L; Rodrigues, J I S; Teodoro, P E

2016-08-19

With the changes in spinning technology, technological cotton traits, such as fiber length, fiber uniformity, fiber strength, fineness, fiber maturity, percentage of fibers, and short fiber index, are of great importance for selecting cotton genotypes. However, for accurate discrimination of genotypes, it is important that these traits are evaluated with the best possible accuracy. The aim of this study was to determine the number of measurements (repetitions) needed to accurately assess technological traits of cotton genotypes. Seven experiments were conducted in four Brazilian States (Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Goiás, and Mato Grosso do Sul). We used nine brown and two white colored fiber lines in a randomized block design with four replications. After verifying the assumptions of residual normality and homogeneity of variances, analysis of variance was performed to estimate the repeatability coefficient and calculating the number of repetitions. Trials with four replications were found to be sufficient to identify superior cotton genotypes for all measured traits except short fiber index with a selective accuracy >90% and at least 81% accuracy in predicting their actual value. These results allow more accurate and reliable results in future researches with evaluating technological traits in cotton genotypes.

The Influence of Task Repetition and Task Structure on EFL Learners' Oral Narrative Retellings

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Saeedi, Masoud; Rahimi Kazerooni, Shirin

2014-01-01

This article reports on an empirical study which attempted to explore the influence of repeating two different types of narrative tasks on complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) in the oral production of learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). For this purpose, the effects of four conditions (i.e. no task repetition with a loosely…

An Exploratory Study into Trade-Off Effects of Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency on Young Learners' Oral Task Repetition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sample, Evelyn; Michel, Marije

2014-01-01

Studying task repetition for adult and young foreign language learners of English (EFL) has received growing interest in recent literature within the task-based approach (Bygate, 2009; Hawkes, 2012; Mackey, Kanganas, & Oliver, 2007; Pinter, 2007b). Earlier work suggests that second language (L2) learners benefit from repeating the same or a…

Strong and long: effects of word length on phonological binding in verbal short-term memory.

PubMed

Jefferies, Elizabeth; Frankish, Clive; Noble, Katie

2011-02-01

This study examined the effects of item length on the contribution of linguistic knowledge to immediate serial recall (ISR). Long words are typically recalled more poorly than short words, reflecting the greater demands that they place on phonological encoding, rehearsal, and production. However, reverse word length effects--that is, better recall of long than short words--can also occur in situations in which phonological maintenance is difficult, suggesting that long words derive greater support from long-term lexical knowledge. In this study, long and short words and nonwords (containing one vs. three syllables) were presented for immediate serial recall in (a) pure lists and (b) unpredictable mixed lists of words and nonwords. The mixed-list paradigm is known to disrupt the phonological stability of words, encouraging their phonemes to recombine with the elements of other list items. In this situation, standard length effects were seen for nonwords, while length effects for words were absent or reversed. A detailed error analysis revealed that long words were more robust to the mixed-list manipulation than short words: Their phonemes were less likely to be omitted and to recombine with phonemes from other list items. These findings support an interactive view of short-term memory, in which long words derive greater benefits from lexical knowledge than short words-especially when their phonological integrity is challenged by the inclusion of nonwords in mixed lists.

Stress priming in reading and the selective modulation of lexical and sub-lexical pathways.

PubMed

Colombo, Lucia; Zevin, Jason

2009-09-29

Four experiments employed a priming methodology to investigate different mechanisms of stress assignment and how they are modulated by lexical and sub-lexical mechanisms in reading aloud in Italian. Lexical stress is unpredictable in Italian, and requires lexical look-up. The most frequent stress pattern (Dominant) is on the penultimate syllable [laVOro (work)], while stress on the antepenultimate syllable [MAcchina (car)] is relatively less frequent (non-Dominant). Word and pseudoword naming responses primed by words with non-dominant stress--which require whole-word knowledge to be read correctly--were compared to those primed by nonwords. Percentage of errors to words and percentage of dominant stress responses to nonwords were measured. In Experiments 1 and 2 stress errors increased for non-dominant stress words primed by nonwords, as compared to when they were primed by words. The results could be attributed to greater activation of sub-lexical codes, and an associated tendency to assign the dominant stress pattern by default in the nonword prime condition. Alternatively, they may have been the consequence of prosodic priming, inducing more errors on trials in which the stress pattern of primes and targets was not congruent. The two interpretations were investigated in Experiments 3 and 4. The results overall suggested a limited role of the default metrical pattern in word pronunciation, and showed clear effect of prosodic priming, but only when the sub-lexical mechanism prevailed.

Forward and Backward Repetition Blindness in Speed and Accuracy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wong, Kin Fai Ellick; Chen, Hsuan-Chih

2009-01-01

Repetition blindness (RB) was investigated in a new paradigm in which effects could stem from items preceding or following a target. Speeded-response tasks in which 3 critical items (C1, C2, and C3) were sequentially presented on each trial. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants were asked to judge whether C2 (the target) was present on each trial.…

The Effect of Task Repetition on Fluency and Accuracy of EFL Saudi Female Learners' Oral Performance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gashan, Amani K.; Almohaisen, Fahad M.

2014-01-01

This study aimed to examine the effect of task repetition on foreign language output. Twenty eight Saudi female students in the Preparatory Year (PY) at King Saud university, were randomly selected to conduct an oral information-gap task. The participants were asked to perform the task two times with two-week interval between the two performances.…

The Accuracy of Conventional 2D Video for Quantifying Upper Limb Kinematics in Repetitive Motion Occupational Tasks

PubMed Central

Chen, Chia-Hsiung; Azari, David; Hu, Yu Hen; Lindstrom, Mary J.; Thelen, Darryl; Yen, Thomas Y.; Radwin, Robert G.

2015-01-01

Objective Marker-less 2D video tracking was studied as a practical means to measure upper limb kinematics for ergonomics evaluations. Background Hand activity level (HAL) can be estimated from speed and duty cycle. Accuracy was measured using a cross correlation template-matching algorithm for tracking a region of interest on the upper extremities. Methods Ten participants performed a paced load transfer task while varying HAL (2, 4, and 5) and load (2.2 N, 8.9 N and 17.8 N). Speed and acceleration measured from 2D video were compared against ground truth measurements using 3D infrared motion capture. Results The median absolute difference between 2D video and 3D motion capture was 86.5 mm/s for speed, and 591 mm/s2 for acceleration, and less than 93 mm/s for speed and 656 mm/s2 for acceleration when camera pan and tilt were within ±30 degrees. Conclusion Single-camera 2D video had sufficient accuracy (< 100 mm/s) for evaluating HAL. Practitioner Summary This study demonstrated that 2D video tracking had sufficient accuracy to measure HAL for ascertaining the American Conference of Government Industrial Hygienists Threshold Limit Value® for repetitive motion when the camera is located within ±30 degrees off the plane of motion when compared against 3D motion capture for a simulated repetitive motion task. PMID:25978764

Error biases in inner and overt speech: evidence from tongue twisters.

PubMed

Corley, Martin; Brocklehurst, Paul H; Moat, H Susannah

2011-01-01

To compare the properties of inner and overt speech, Oppenheim and Dell (2008) counted participants' self-reported speech errors when reciting tongue twisters either overtly or silently and found a bias toward substituting phonemes that resulted in words in both conditions, but a bias toward substituting similar phonemes only when speech was overt. Here, we report 3 experiments revisiting their conclusion that inner speech remains underspecified at the subphonemic level, which they simulated within an activation-feedback framework. In 2 experiments, participants recited tongue twisters that could result in the errorful substitutions of similar or dissimilar phonemes to form real words or nonwords. Both experiments included an auditory masking condition, to gauge the possible impact of loss of auditory feedback on the accuracy of self-reporting of speech errors. In Experiment 1, the stimuli were composed entirely from real words, whereas, in Experiment 2, half the tokens used were nonwords. Although masking did not have any effects, participants were more likely to report substitutions of similar phonemes in both experiments, in inner as well as overt speech. This pattern of results was confirmed in a 3rd experiment using the real-word materials from Oppenheim and Dell (in press). In addition to these findings, a lexical bias effect found in Experiments 1 and 3 disappeared in Experiment 2. Our findings support a view in which plans for inner speech are indeed specified at the feature level, even when there is no intention to articulate words overtly, and in which editing of the plan for errors is implicated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).

Language differences in verbal short-term memory do not exclusively originate in the process of subvocal rehearsal.

PubMed

Thorn, A S; Gathercole, S E

2001-06-01

Language differences in verbal short-term memory were investigated in two experiments. In Experiment 1, bilinguals with high competence in English and French and monolingual English adults with extremely limited knowledge of French were assessed on their serial recall of words and nonwords in both languages. In all cases recall accuracy was superior in the language with which individuals were most familiar, a first-language advantage that remained when variation due to differential rates of articulation in the two languages was taken into account. In Experiment 2, bilinguals recalled lists of English and French words with and without concurrent articulatory suppression. First-language superiority persisted under suppression, suggesting that the language differences in recall accuracy were not attributable to slower rates of subvocal rehearsal in the less familiar language. The findings indicate that language-specific differences in verbal short-term memory do not exclusively originate in the subvocal rehearsal process. It is suggested that one source of language-specific variation might relate to the use of long-term knowledge to support short-term memory performance.

Ranging error analysis of single photon satellite laser altimetry under different terrain conditions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Huang, Jiapeng; Li, Guoyuan; Gao, Xiaoming; Wang, Jianmin; Fan, Wenfeng; Zhou, Shihong

2018-02-01

Single photon satellite laser altimeter is based on Geiger model, which has the characteristics of small spot, high repetition rate etc. In this paper, for the slope terrain, the distance of error's formula and numerical calculation are carried out. Monte Carlo method is used to simulate the experiment of different terrain measurements. The experimental results show that ranging accuracy is not affected by the spot size under the condition of the flat terrain, But the inclined terrain can influence the ranging error dramatically, when the satellite pointing angle is 0.001° and the terrain slope is about 12°, the ranging error can reach to 0.5m. While the accuracy can't meet the requirement when the slope is more than 70°. Monte Carlo simulation results show that single photon laser altimeter satellite with high repetition rate can improve the ranging accuracy under the condition of complex terrain. In order to ensure repeated observation of the same point for 25 times, according to the parameters of ICESat-2, we deduce the quantitative relation between the footprint size, footprint, and the frequency repetition. The related conclusions can provide reference for the design and demonstration of the domestic single photon laser altimetry satellite.

A diffusion decision model analysis of evidence variability in the lexical decision task.

PubMed

Tillman, Gabriel; Osth, Adam F; van Ravenzwaaij, Don; Heathcote, Andrew

2017-12-01

The lexical-decision task is among the most commonly used paradigms in psycholinguistics. In both the signal-detection theory and Diffusion Decision Model (DDM; Ratcliff, Gomez, & McKoon, Psychological Review, 111, 159-182, 2004) frameworks, lexical-decisions are based on a continuous source of word-likeness evidence for both words and non-words. The Retrieving Effectively from Memory model of Lexical-Decision (REM-LD; Wagenmakers et al., Cognitive Psychology, 48(3), 332-367, 2004) provides a comprehensive explanation of lexical-decision data and makes the prediction that word-likeness evidence is more variable for words than non-words and that higher frequency words are more variable than lower frequency words. To test these predictions, we analyzed five lexical-decision data sets with the DDM. For all data sets, drift-rate variability changed across word frequency and non-word conditions. For the most part, REM-LD's predictions about the ordering of evidence variability across stimuli in the lexical-decision task were confirmed.

Transposed-letter priming effects in reading aloud words and nonwords.

PubMed

Mousikou, Petroula; Kinoshita, Sachiko; Wu, Simon; Norris, Dennis

2015-10-01

A masked nonword prime generated by transposing adjacent inner letters in a word (e.g., jugde) facilitates the recognition of the target word (JUDGE) more than a prime in which the relevant letters are replaced by different letters (e.g., junpe). This transposed-letter (TL) priming effect has been widely interpreted as evidence that the coding of letter position is flexible, rather than precise. Although the TL priming effect has been extensively investigated in the domain of visual word recognition using the lexical decision task, very few studies have investigated this empirical phenomenon in reading aloud. In the present study, we investigated TL priming effects in reading aloud words and nonwords and found that these effects are of equal magnitude for the two types of items. We take this result as support for the view that the TL priming effect arises from noisy perception of letter order within the prime prior to the mapping of orthography to phonology.

Characterization of medical students recall of factual knowledge using learning objects and repeated testing in a novel e-learning system.

PubMed

Taveira-Gomes, Tiago; Prado-Costa, Rui; Severo, Milton; Ferreira, Maria Amélia

2015-01-24

Spaced-repetition and test-enhanced learning are two methodologies that boost knowledge retention. ALERT STUDENT is a platform that allows creation and distribution of Learning Objects named flashcards, and provides insight into student judgments-of-learning through a metric called 'recall accuracy'. This study aims to understand how the spaced-repetition and test-enhanced learning features provided by the platform affect recall accuracy, and to characterize the effect that students, flashcards and repetitions exert on this measurement. Three spaced laboratory sessions (s0, s1 and s2), were conducted with n=96 medical students. The intervention employed a study task, and a quiz task that consisted in mentally answering open-ended questions about each flashcard and grading recall accuracy. Students were randomized into study-quiz and quiz groups. On s0 both groups performed the quiz task. On s1 and s2, the study-quiz group performed the study task followed by the quiz task, whereas the quiz group only performed the quiz task. We measured differences in recall accuracy between groups/sessions, its variance components, and the G-coefficients for the flashcard component. At s0 there were no differences in recall accuracy between groups. The experiment group achieved a significant increase in recall accuracy that was superior to the quiz group in s1 and s2. In the study-quiz group, increases in recall accuracy were mainly due to the session, followed by flashcard factors and student factors. In the quiz group, increases in recall accuracy were mainly accounted by flashcard factors, followed by student and session factors. The flashcard G-coefficient indicated an agreement on recall accuracy of 91% in the quiz group, and of 47% in the study-quiz group. Recall accuracy is an easily collectible measurement that increases the educational value of Learning Objects and open-ended questions. This metric seems to vary in a way consistent with knowledge retention, but further investigation is necessary to ascertain the nature of such relationship. Recall accuracy has educational implications to students and educators, and may contribute to deliver tailored learning experiences, assess the effectiveness of instruction, and facilitate research comparing blended-learning interventions.

The Role of Categorical Speech Perception and Phonological Processing in Familial Risk Children With and Without Dyslexia.

PubMed

Hakvoort, Britt; de Bree, Elise; van der Leij, Aryan; Maassen, Ben; van Setten, Ellie; Maurits, Natasha; van Zuijen, Titia L

2016-12-01

This study assessed whether a categorical speech perception (CP) deficit is associated with dyslexia or familial risk for dyslexia, by exploring a possible cascading relation from speech perception to phonology to reading and by identifying whether speech perception distinguishes familial risk (FR) children with dyslexia (FRD) from those without dyslexia (FRND). Data were collected from 9-year-old FRD (n = 37) and FRND (n = 41) children and age-matched controls (n = 49) on CP identification and discrimination and on the phonological processing measures rapid automatized naming, phoneme awareness, and nonword repetition. The FRD group performed more poorly on CP than the FRND and control groups. Findings on phonological processing align with the literature in that (a) phonological processing related to reading and (b) the FRD group showed the lowest phonological processing outcomes. Furthermore, CP correlated weakly with reading, but this relationship was fully mediated by rapid automatized naming. Although CP phonological skills are related to dyslexia, there was no strong evidence for a cascade from CP to phonology to reading. Deficits in CP at the behavioral level are not directly associated with dyslexia.

Delay or deficit? Spelling processes in children with specific language impairment.

PubMed

Larkin, Rebecca F; Williams, Gareth J; Blaggan, Samarita

2013-01-01

Few studies have explored the phonological, morphological and orthographic spellings skills of children with specific language impairment (SLI) simultaneously. Fifteen children with SLI (mean age=113.07 months, SD=8.61) completed language and spelling tasks alongside chronological-age controls and spelling-age controls. While the children with SLI showed a deficit in phonological spelling, they performed comparably to spelling-age controls on morphological spelling skills, and there were no differences between the three groups in producing orthographically legal spellings. The results also highlighted the potential importance of adequate non-word repetition skills in relation to effective spelling skills, and demonstrated that not all children with spoken language impairments show marked spelling difficulties. Findings are discussed in relation to theory, educational assessment and practice. As a result of this activity, readers will describe components of spoken language that predict children's morphological and phonological spelling performance. As a result of this activity, readers will describe how the spelling skills of children with SLI compare to age-matched and spelling age-matched control children. Readers will be able to interpret the variability in spelling performance seen in children with SLI. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Lexical and phonological variability in preschool children with speech sound disorder.

PubMed

Macrae, Toby; Tyler, Ann A; Lewis, Kerry E

2014-02-01

The authors of this study examined relationships between measures of word and speech error variability and between these and other speech and language measures in preschool children with speech sound disorder (SSD). In this correlational study, 18 preschool children with SSD, age-appropriate receptive vocabulary, and normal oral motor functioning and hearing were assessed across 2 sessions. Experimental measures included word and speech error variability, receptive vocabulary, nonword repetition (NWR), and expressive language. Pearson product–moment correlation coefficients were calculated among the experimental measures. The correlation between word and speech error variability was slight and nonsignificant. The correlation between word variability and receptive vocabulary was moderate and negative, although nonsignificant. High word variability was associated with small receptive vocabularies. The correlations between speech error variability and NWR and between speech error variability and the mean length of children's utterances were moderate and negative, although both were nonsignificant. High speech error variability was associated with poor NWR and language scores. High word variability may reflect unstable lexical representations, whereas high speech error variability may reflect indistinct phonological representations. Preschool children with SSD who show abnormally high levels of different types of speech variability may require slightly different approaches to intervention.

Are Specific Language Impairment and Dyslexia Distinct Disorders?

PubMed Central

Catts, Hugh W.; Adlof, Suzanne M.; Hogan, Tiffany; Weismer, Susan Ellis

2010-01-01

Purpose The purpose of this study was to determine whether specific language impairment (SLI) and dyslexia are distinct developmental disorders. Method Study 1 investigated the overlap between SLI identified in kindergarten and dyslexia identified in 2nd, 4th, or 8th grades in a representative sample of 527 children. Study 2 examined phonological processing in a subsample of participants, including 21 children with dyslexia only, 43 children with SLI only, 18 children with SLI and dyslexia, and 165 children with typical language/reading development. Measures of phonological awareness and nonword repetition were considered. Results Study 1 showed limited but statistically significant overlap between SLI and dyslexia. Study 2 found that children with dyslexia or a combination of dyslexia and SLI performed significantly less well on measures of phonological processing than did children with SLI only and those with typical development. Children with SLI only showed only mild deficits in phonological processing compared with typical children. Conclusions These results support the view that SLI and dyslexia are distinct but potentially comorbid developmental language disorders. A deficit in phonological processing is closely associated with dyslexia but not with SLI when it occurs in the absence of dyslexia. PMID:16478378

[Attempt for development of rapid word reading test for children--evaluation of reliability and validity].

PubMed

Hashimoto, Ryusaku; Kashiwagi, Mitsuru; Suzuki, Shuhei

2008-09-01

We developed a rapid word reading test for examining the phonological processing ability of Japanese children. We prepared two versions of the test, version A and B. Each test has word and non-word tasks. Twenty-two healthy boys of third grade in primary schools participated in this validation study. For criterion related validity, we performed the serial Hiragana reading test, the sentence reading test, Raven's coloured progressive matrices (RCPM), the Token test for children, the Kana word dictation test, the standardized comprehension test of abstract words (SCTAW), and Trail Circle test. The reading times of the newly developed test correlated moderately or highly with those of the serial Hiragana reading test and the sentence reading test. However, the scores of the other tests (RCPM, Token test for children, Kana word dictation test, SCTAW, Trail Circle test) did not correlated with the reading time of the rapid word reading test. Test-retest reliabilities in the word tasks were more than moderate: 0.52 and 0.76 in versions A and B, while those in the non-word tasks were high: 0.91 and 0.88 in versions A and B. The correlation coefficient between versions A and B was 0.7 for the word tasks and 0.92 for the non-word tasks. This study showed that the rapid word reading test has substantial validity and reliability for testing the phonological processing ability of Japanese children. In addition, the non-word tasks were more suitable for selectively examining the speed of the grapheme to phoneme conversion process.

Activation and binding in verbal working memory: a dual-process model for the recognition of nonwords.

PubMed

Oberauer, Klaus; Lange, Elke B

2009-02-01

The article presents a mathematical model of short-term recognition based on dual-process models and the three-component theory of working memory [Oberauer, K. (2002). Access to information in working memory: Exploring the focus of attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 28, 411-421]. Familiarity arises from activated representations in long-term memory, ignoring their relations; recollection retrieves bindings in the capacity-limited component of working memory. In three experiments participants encoded two short lists of nonwords for immediate recognition, one of which was then cued as irrelevant. Probes from the irrelevant list were rejected more slowly than new probes; this was also found with probes recombining letters of irrelevant nonwords, suggesting that familiarity arises from individual letters independent of their relations. When asked to accept probes whose letters were all in the relevant list, regardless of their conjunction, participants accepted probes preserving the original conjunctions faster than recombinations, showing that recollection accessed feature bindings automatically. The model fit the data best when familiarity depended only on matching letters, whereas recollection used binding information.

Toward an Executive Origin for Acquired Phonological Dyslexia: A Case of Specific Deficit of Context-Sensitive Grapheme-to-Phoneme Conversion Rules

PubMed Central

Auclair-Ouellet, Noémie; Fossard, Marion; St-Pierre, Marie-Catherine; Macoir, Joël

2013-01-01

Phonological dyslexia is a written language disorder characterized by poor reading of nonwords when compared with relatively preserved ability in reading real words. In this study, we report the case of FG, a 74-year-old man with phonological dyslexia. The nature and origin of his reading impairment were assessed using tasks involving activation and explicit manipulation of phonological representations as well as reading of words and nonwords in which the nature and complexity of grapheme-to-phoneme conversion rules (GPC rules) were manipulated. FG also underwent an extensive neuropsychological assessment battery in which he showed impaired performance in tests exploring verbal working memory and executive functions. FG showed no phonological impairment, and his performance was also largely unimpaired for reading words, with no effect of concreteness, grammatical class, morphological complexity, length or nature and complexity of the GPC rules. However, he showed substantial difficulties when asked to read nonwords with contextual GPC rules. The contribution of FG’s executive deficits to his performance in reading is discussed. PMID:22713417

Transposed-letter priming of prelexical orthographic representations.

PubMed

Kinoshita, Sachiko; Norris, Dennis

2009-01-01

A prime generated by transposing two internal letters (e.g., jugde) produces strong priming of the original word (judge). In lexical decision, this transposed-letter (TL) priming effect is generally weak or absent for nonword targets; thus, it is unclear whether the origin of this effect is lexical or prelexical. The authors describe the Bayesian Reader theory of masked priming (D. Norris & S. Kinoshita, 2008), which explains why nonwords do not show priming in lexical decision but why they do in the cross-case same-different task. This analysis is followed by 3 experiments that show that priming in this task is not based on low-level perceptual similarity between the prime and target, or on phonology, to make the case that priming is based on prelexical orthographic representation. The authors then use this task to demonstrate equivalent TL priming effects for nonwords and words. The results are interpreted as the first reliable evidence based on the masked priming procedure that letter position is not coded absolutely within the prelexical, orthographic representation. The implications of the results for current letter position coding schemes are discussed.

Tactile Ranschburg effects: facilitation and inhibitory repetition effects analogous to verbal memory.

PubMed

Roe, Daisy; Miles, Christopher; Johnson, Andrew J

2017-07-01

The present paper examines the effect of within-sequence item repetitions in tactile order memory. Employing an immediate serial recall procedure, participants reconstructed a six-item sequence tapped upon their fingers by moving those fingers in the order of original stimulation. In Experiment 1a, within-sequence repetition of an item separated by two-intervening items resulted in a significant reduction in recall accuracy for that repeated item (i.e., the Ranschburg effect). In Experiment 1b, within-sequence repetition of an adjacent item resulted in significant recall facilitation for that repeated item. These effects mirror those reported for verbal stimuli (e.g., Henson, 1998a . Item repetition in short-term memory: Ranschburg repeated. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 24(5), 1162-1181. doi:doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.24.5.1162). These data are the first to demonstrate the Ranschburg effect with non-verbal stimuli and suggest further cross-modal similarities in order memory.

[Developmental changes in reading ability of Japanese elementary school children--analysis of 4 kana reading tasks].

PubMed

Kobayashi, Tomoka; Inagaki, Masumi; Gunji, Atsuko; Yatabe, Kiyomi; Kaga, Makiko; Goto, Takaaki; Koike, Toshihide; Wakamiya, Eiji; Koeda, Tatsuya

2010-01-01

Five hundred and twenty-eight Japanese elementary school children aged from 6 (Grade 1) to 12 (Grade 6) were tested for their abilities to read Hiragana characters, words, and short sentences. They were typically developing children whom the classroom teachers judged to have no problems with reading and writing in Japanese. Each child was asked to read four tasks which were written in Hiragana script: single mora reading task, four syllable non-word reading task, four syllable word reading task, and short sentence reading task. The total articulation time for reading and performance in terms of accuracy were measured for each task. Developmental changes in these variables were evaluated. The articulation time was significantly longer for the first graders, and it gradually shortened as they moved through to the upper grades in all tasks. The articulation time reached a plateau in the 4th grade for the four syllable word and short sentence reading tasks, while it did so for the single mora and four syllable non-word reading tasks in the 5th grade. The articulation times for the four syllable word and short sentence reading tasks correlated strongly. There were very few clear errors for all tasks, and the number of such errors significantly changed between the school grades only for the single mora and four syllable word reading tasks. It was noted that more than half of the children read the beginning portion of the word or phrase twice or more, in order to read it accurately, and developmental changes were also seen in this pattern of reading. This study revealed that the combination of these reading tasks may function as a screening test for reading disorders such as developmental dyslexia in children below the age of ten or eleven years old.

The pros and cons of masked priming.

PubMed

Forster, K I

1998-03-01

Masked priming paradigms offer the promise of tapping automatic, strategy-free lexical processing, as evidenced by the lack of expectancy disconfirmation effects, and proportionality effects in semantic priming experiments. But several recent findings suggest the effects may be prelexical. These findings concern nonword priming effects in lexical decision and naming, the effects of mixed-case presentation on nonword priming, and the dependence of priming on the nature of the distractors in lexical decision, suggesting possible strategy effects. The theory underlying each of these effects is discussed, and alternative explanations are developed that do not preclude a lexical basis for masked priming effects.

Levodopa enhances explicit new-word learning in healthy adults: a preliminary study.

PubMed

Shellshear, Leanne; MacDonald, Anna D; Mahoney, Jeffrey; Finch, Emma; McMahon, Katie; Silburn, Peter; Nathan, Pradeep J; Copland, David A

2015-09-01

While the role of dopamine in modulating executive function, working memory and associative learning has been established; its role in word learning and language processing more generally is not clear. This preliminary study investigated the impact of increased synaptic dopamine levels on new-word learning ability in healthy young adults using an explicit learning paradigm. A double-blind, placebo-controlled, between-groups design was used. Participants completed five learning sessions over 1 week with levodopa or placebo administered at each session (five doses, 100 mg). Each session involved a study phase followed by a test phase. Test phases involved recall and recognition tests of the new (non-word) names previously paired with unfamiliar objects (half with semantic descriptions) during the study phase. The levodopa group showed superior recall accuracy for new words over five learning sessions compared with the placebo group and better recognition accuracy at a 1-month follow-up for words learnt with a semantic description. These findings suggest that dopamine boosts initial lexical acquisition and enhances longer-term consolidation of words learnt with semantic information, consistent with dopaminergic enhancement of semantic salience. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Lexicality Effects in Word and Nonword Recall of Semantic Dementia and Progressive Nonfluent Aphasia

PubMed Central

Reilly, Jamie; Troche, Joshua; Chatel, Alison; Park, Hyejin; Kalinyak-Fliszar, Michelene; Antonucci, Sharon M.; Martin, Nadine

2012-01-01

Background Verbal working memory is an essential component of many language functions, including sentence comprehension and word learning. As such, working memory has emerged as a domain of intense research interest both in aphasiology and in the broader field of cognitive neuroscience. The integrity of verbal working memory encoding relies on a fluid interaction between semantic and phonological processes. That is, we encode verbal detail using many cues related to both the sound and meaning of words. Lesion models can provide an effective means of parsing the contributions of phonological or semantic impairment to recall performance. Methods and Procedures We employed the lesion model approach here by contrasting the nature of lexicality errors incurred during recall of word and nonword sequences by 3individuals with progressive nonfluent aphasia (a phonological dominant impairment) compared to that of 2 individuals with semantic dementia (a semantic dominant impairment). We focused on psycholinguistic attributes of correctly recalled stimuli relative to those that elicited a lexicality error (i.e., nonword → word OR word → nonword). Outcomes and results Patients with semantic dementia showed greater sensitivity to phonological attributes (e.g., phoneme length, wordlikeness) of the target items relative to semantic attributes (e.g., familiarity). Patients with PNFA showed the opposite pattern, marked by sensitivity to word frequency, age of acquisition, familiarity, and imageability. Conclusions We interpret these results in favor of a processing strategy such that in the context of a focal phonological impairment patients revert to an over-reliance on preserved semantic processing abilities. In contrast, a focal semantic impairment forces both reliance upon and hypersensitivity to phonological attributes of target words. We relate this interpretation to previous hypotheses about the nature of verbal short-term memory in progressive aphasia. PMID:23486736

Intervention for a multi-character processing deficit in a Greek-speaking child with surface dyslexia.

PubMed

Niolaki, Georgia Z; Masterson, Jackie

2013-01-01

A case study with a 12-year-old boy, R.F., who was a monolingual speaker of Greek is reported. R.F. showed slow word reading and a difficulty in spelling irregular words but not nonwords. Assessments revealed that R.F. did not appear to have a phonological deficit, but indicated impaired multicharacter processing ability for visually presented letter arrays. On the basis of previous research linking multicharacter processing and reading we developed an intervention aimed at improving R.F.'s ability to report letter arrays of increasing length. Following a 9-week programme, improvement was observed, and investigation of R.F.'s reading revealed gains in single word reading speed and accuracy. The findings support the significance of intervention studies for testing hypotheses regarding causal relationships among cognitive processes and the notion of specific profiles of developmental dyslexia/dysgraphia in both opaque and transparent orthographies.

A new performance index for the repetitive motion of mobile manipulators.

PubMed

Xiao, Lin; Zhang, Yunong

2014-02-01

A mobile manipulator is a robotic device composed of a mobile platform and a stationary manipulator fixed to the platform. To achieve the repetitive motion control of mobile manipulators, the mobile platform and the manipulator have to realize the repetitive motion simultaneously. To do so, a novel quadratic performance index is, for the first time, designed and presented in this paper, of which the effectiveness is analyzed by following a neural dynamics method. Then, a repetitive motion scheme is proposed by combining the criterion, physical constraints, and integrated kinematical equations of mobile manipulators, which is further reformulated as a quadratic programming (QP) subject to equality and bound constraints. In addition, two important Bridge theorems are established to prove that such a QP can be converted equivalently into a linear variational inequality, and then equivalently into a piecewise-linear projection equation (PLPE). A real-time numerical algorithm based on PLPE is thus developed and applied for the online solution of the resultant QP. Two tracking-path tasks demonstrate the effectiveness and accuracy of the repetitive motion scheme. In addition, comparisons between the nonrepetitive and repetitive motion further validate the superiority and novelty of the proposed scheme.

The relationship between semantic short-term memory and immediate serial recall of known and unknown words and nonwords: data from two Chinese individuals with aphasia.

PubMed

Wong, Winsy; Low, Sam-Po

2008-07-01

The present study investigated verbal recall of semantically preserved and degraded words and nonwords by taking into consideration the status of one's semantic short-term memory (STM). Two experiments were conducted on 2 Chinese individuals with aphasia. The first experiment showed that they had largely preserved phonological processing abilities accompanied by mild but comparable semantic processing deficits; however, their performance on STM tasks revealed a double dissociation. The second experiment found that the participant with more preserved semantic STM had better recall of known words and nonwords than of their unknown counterparts, whereas such effects were absent in the patient with severe semantic STM deficit. The results are compatible with models that assume separate phonological and semantic STM components, such as that of R. C. Martin, M. Lesch, and M. Bartha (1999). In addition, the distribution of error types was different from previous studies. This is discussed in terms of the methodology of the authors' experiments and current views regarding the nature of semantic STM and representations in the Chinese mental lexicon. (c) 2008 APA

Additive and interactive effects in semantic priming: Isolating lexical and decision processes in the lexical decision task.

PubMed

Yap, Melvin J; Balota, David A; Tan, Sarah E

2013-01-01

The present study sheds light on the interplay between lexical and decision processes in the lexical decision task by exploring the effects of lexical decision difficulty on semantic priming effects. In 2 experiments, we increased lexical decision difficulty by either using transposed letter wordlike nonword distracters (e.g., JUGDE; Experiment 1) or by visually degrading targets (Experiment 2). Although target latencies were considerably slowed by both difficulty manipulations, stimulus quality-but not nonword type-moderated priming effects, consistent with recent work by Lupker and Pexman (2010). To characterize these results in a more fine-grained manner, data were also analyzed at the level of response time (RT) distributions, using a combination of ex-Gaussian, quantile, and diffusion model analyses. The results indicate that for clear targets, priming was reflected by distributional shifting of comparable magnitude across different nonword types. In contrast, priming of degraded targets was reflected by shifting and an increase in the tail of the distribution. We discuss how these findings, along with others, can be accommodated by an embellished multistage activation model that incorporates retrospective prime retrieval and decision-based mechanisms.

How African American English-Speaking First Graders Segment and Rhyme Words and Nonwords With Final Consonant Clusters.

PubMed

Shollenbarger, Amy J; Robinson, Gregory C; Taran, Valentina; Choi, Seo-Eun

2017-10-05

This study explored how typically developing 1st grade African American English (AAE) speakers differ from mainstream American English (MAE) speakers in the completion of 2 common phonological awareness tasks (rhyming and phoneme segmentation) when the stimulus items were consonant-vowel-consonant-consonant (CVCC) words and nonwords. Forty-nine 1st graders met criteria for 2 dialect groups: AAE and MAE. Three conditions were tested in each rhyme and segmentation task: Real Words No Model, Real Words With a Model, and Nonwords With a Model. The AAE group had significantly more responses that rhymed CVCC words with consonant-vowel-consonant words and segmented CVCC words as consonant-vowel-consonant than the MAE group across all experimental conditions. In the rhyming task, the presence of a model in the real word condition elicited more reduced final cluster responses for both groups. In the segmentation task, the MAE group was at ceiling, so only the AAE group changed across the different stimulus presentations and reduced the final cluster less often when given a model. Rhyming and phoneme segmentation performance can be influenced by a child's dialect when CVCC words are used.

Behavioral and ERP evidence of word and pseudoword superiority effects in 7- and 11-year-olds

PubMed Central

Coch, Donna; Mitra, Priya; George, Elyse

2012-01-01

In groups of 7-year-olds and 11-year-olds, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded to briefly presented, masked letter strings that included real word (DARK/PARK), pronounceable pseudoword (DARL/PARL), unpronounceable nonword (RDKA/RPKA), and letter-in-xs (DXXX, PXXX) stimuli in a variant of the Reicher-Wheeler paradigm. Behaviorally, participants decided which of two letters occurred at a given position in each string (here, forced-choice alternatives D and P). Both groups showed evidence of behavioral word (more accurate choices for letters in words than in baseline nonwords or letter-in-xs) and pseudoword (more accurate choices for letters in pseudowords than in baseline nonwords or letter-in-xs) superiority effects. Electrophysiologically, 11-year-olds evidenced superiority effects on P150 and N400 peak amplitude, while 7-year-olds showed effects only on N400 amplitude. These findings suggest that the mechanisms underlying the observed behavioral superiority effects may be lexical in younger children but both sublexical and lexical in older children. These results are consistent with a lengthy developmental time course for automatic sublexical orthographic specialization, extending beyond the age of 11. PMID:23036274

Overcoming the Effects of Variation in Infant Speech Segmentation: Influences of Word Familiarity

PubMed Central

Singh, Leher; Nestor, Sarah S.; Bortfeld, Heather

2010-01-01

Previous studies have shown that 7.5-month-olds can track and encode words in fluent speech, but they fail to equate instances of a word that contrast in talker gender, vocal affect, and fundamental frequency. By 10.5 months, they succeed at generalizing across such variability, marking a clear transition period during which infants’ word recognition skills become qualitatively more mature. Here we explore the role of word familiarity in this critical transition and, in particular, whether words that occur frequently in a child’s listening environment (i.e., “Mommy” and “Daddy”) are more easily recognized when they differ in surface characteristics than those that infants have not previously encountered (termed nonwords). Results demonstrate that words are segmented from continuous speech in a more linguistically mature fashion than nonwords at 7.5 months, but at 10.5 months, both words and nonwords are segmented in a relatively mature fashion. These findings suggest that early word recognition is facilitated in cases where infants have had significant exposure to items, but at later stages, infants are able to segment items regardless of their presumed familiarity. PMID:21088702

Does assist-as-needed upper limb robotic therapy promote participation in repetitive activity-based motor training in sub-acute stroke patients with severe paresis?

PubMed

Grosmaire, Anne-Gaëlle; Duret, Christophe

2017-01-01

Repetitive, active movement-based training promotes brain plasticity and motor recovery after stroke. Robotic therapy provides highly repetitive therapy that reduces motor impairment. However, the effect of assist-as-needed algorithms on patient participation and movement quality is not known. To analyze patient participation and motor performance during highly repetitive assist-as-needed upper limb robotic therapy in a retrospective study. Sixteen patients with sub-acute stroke carried out a 16-session upper limb robotic training program combined with usual care. The Fugl-Meyer Assessment (FMA) score was evaluated pre and post training. Robotic assistance parameters and Performance measures were compared within and across sessions. Robotic assistance did not change within-session and decreased between sessions during the training program. Motor performance did not decrease within-session and improved between sessions. Velocity-related assistance parameters improved more quickly than accuracy-related parameters. An assist-as-needed-based upper limb robotic training provided intense and repetitive rehabilitation and promoted patient participation and motor performance, facilitating motor recovery.

Performance constraints and the production of birdsong

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Suthers, Roderick A.; Vallet, Eric; Zollinger, Sue Anne

2004-05-01

The role of physical and physiological constraints in determining the performance limits on the tempo and frequency bandwidth of birdsong was investigated. One series of experiments examined the mechanism by which a vocal mimic, the northern mockingbird (Mimus polygottos), copied the songs of other species with which it was tutored as a juvenile. Other experiments analyzed the motor basis of special canary (Serinus canaria) syllables eliciting sexual responses from females. In each case, the mechanism of vocalization was determined by measuring the respiratory dynamics and sound produced on each side of the songbirds duplex vocal organ, the syrinx. When mockingbirds copied the songs of other species the accuracy of their copy depended on the accuracy with which they reproduced the motor pattern used by the tutor species. Motor difficulty of various acoustic features was assessed by the accuracy of its copy. The high repetition rate, broadband canary syllables preferred by females required especially demanding bilateral motor skills. The results indicate that constraints on the rate of respiratory ventilation and bilateral syringeal coordination can set an upper limit on syllable repetition rate and frequency bandwidth. [Work supported by NIH and NSF.

Deep dysgraphia in Turkish.

PubMed

Raman, Ilhan; Weekes, Brendan Stuart

2005-01-01

Deep dysgraphic patients make semantic errors when writing to dictation and they cannot write nonwords. Extant reports of deep dysgraphia come from languages with relatively opaque orthographies. Turkish is a transparent orthography because the bidirectional mappings between phonology and orthography are completely predictable. We report BRB, a biscriptal Turkish-English speaker who has acquired dysgraphia characterised by semantic errors as well as effects of grammatical class and imageability on writing in Turkish. Nonword spelling is abolished. A similar pattern of errors is observed in English. BRB is the first report of acquired dysgraphia in a truly transparent writing system. We argue that deep dysgraphia results from damage to the mappings that are common to both languages between word meanings and orthographic representations.

Task-dependent and task-independent neurovascular responses to syntactic processing⋆

PubMed Central

Caplan, David; Chen, Evan; Waters, Gloria

2008-01-01

The neural basis for syntactic processing was studied using event-related fMRI to determine the locations of BOLD signal increases in the contrast of syntactically complex sentences with center-embedded, object-extracted relative clauses and syntactically simple sentences with right-branching, subject-extracted relative clauses in a group of 15 participants in three tasks. In a sentence verification task, participants saw a target sentence in one of these two syntactic forms, followed by a probe in a simple active form, and determined whether the probe expressed a proposition in the target. In a plausibility judgment task, participants determined whether a sentence in one of these two syntactic forms was plausible or implausible. Finally, in a non-word detection task, participants determined whether a sentence in one of these two syntactic forms contained only real words or a non-word. BOLD signal associated with the syntactic contrast increased in the left posterior inferior frontal gyrus in non-word detection and in a widespread set of areas in the other two tasks. We conclude that the BOLD activity in the left posterior inferior frontal gyrus reflects syntactic processing independent of concurrent cognitive operations and the more widespread areas of activation reflect the use of strategies and the use of the products of syntactic processing to accomplish tasks. PMID:18387556

Evidence for reading improvement following tDCS treatment in children and adolescents with Dyslexia.

PubMed

Costanzo, Floriana; Varuzza, Cristiana; Rossi, Serena; Sdoia, Stefano; Varvara, Pamela; Oliveri, Massimiliano; Giacomo, Koch; Vicari, Stefano; Menghini, Deny

2016-01-01

There is evidence that non-invasive brain stimulation transitorily modulates reading by facilitating the neural pathways underactive in individuals with dyslexia. The study aimed at investigating whether multiple sessions of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) would enhance reading abilities of children and adolescents with dyslexia and whether the effect is long-lasting. Eighteen children and adolescents with dyslexia received three 20-minute sessions a week for 6 weeks (18 sessions) of left anodal/right cathodal tDCS set at 1 mA over parieto-temporal regions combined with a cognitive training. The participants were randomly assigned to the active or the sham treatment; reading tasks (text, high and low frequency words, non-words) were used as outcome measures and collected before treatment, after treatment and one month after the end of treatment. The tolerability of tDCS was evaluated. The active group showed reduced low frequency word reading errors and non-word reading times. These positive effects were stable even one month after the end of treatment. None reported adverse effects. The study shows preliminary evidence of tDCS feasibility and efficacy in improving non-words and low frequency words reading of children and adolescents with dyslexia and it opens new rehabilitative perspectives for the remediation of dyslexia.

From the Bob/Kirk effect to the Benoit/Éric effect: Testing the mechanism of name sound symbolism in two languages.

PubMed

Sidhu, David M; Pexman, Penny M; Saint-Aubin, Jean

2016-09-01

Although it is often assumed that language involves an arbitrary relationship between form and meaning, many studies have demonstrated that nonwords like maluma are associated with round shapes, while nonwords like takete are associated with sharp shapes (i.e., the Maluma/Takete effect, Köhler, 1929/1947). The majority of the research on sound symbolism has used nonwords, but Sidhu and Pexman (2015) recently extended this effect to existing labels: real English first names (i.e., the Bob/Kirk effect). In the present research we tested whether the effects of name sound symbolism generalize to French speakers (Experiment 1) and French names (Experiment 2). In addition, we assessed the underlying mechanism of name sound symbolism, investigating the roles of phonology and orthography in the effect. Results showed that name sound symbolism does generalize to French speakers and French names. Further, this robust effect remained the same when names were presented in a curved vs. angular font (Experiment 3), or when the salience of orthographic information was reduced through auditory presentation (Experiment 4). Together these results suggest that the Bob/Kirk effect is pervasive, and that it is based on fundamental features of name phonemes. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Vocal Fry Use in Adult Female Speakers Exposed to Two Languages.

PubMed

Gibson, Todd A; Summers, Connie; Walls, Sydney

2017-07-01

Several studies have identified the widespread use of vocal fry among American women. Popular explanations for this phenomenon appeal to sociolinguistic purposes that likely take significant time for second language users to learn. The objective of this study was to determine if mere exposure to this vocal register, as opposed to nuanced sociolinguistic motivations, might explain its widespread use. This study used multigroup within- and between-subjects design. Fifty-eight women from one of three language background groups (functionally monolingual in English, functionally monolingual in Spanish, and Spanish-English bilinguals) living in El Paso, Texas, repeated a list of nonwords conforming to the sound rules of English and another list of nonwords conforming to the sound rules of Spanish. Perceptual analysis identified each episode of vocal fry. There were no statistically significant differences between groups in their frequency of vocal fry use despite large differences in their amount of English-language exposure. All groups produced more vocal fry when repeating English than when repeating Spanish nonwords. Because the human perceptual system encodes for vocal qualities even after minimal language experience, the widespread use of vocal fry among female residents in the United States likely is owing to mere exposure to English rather than nuanced sociolinguistic motivations. Copyright © 2017 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Effects of repetitive pulsing on multi-kHz planar laser-induced incandescence imaging in laminar and turbulent flames

DOE PAGES

Michael, James B.; Venkateswaran, Prabhakar; Shaddix, Christopher R.; ...

2015-04-08

Planar laser-induced incandescence (LII) imaging is reported at repetition rates up to 100 kHz using a burst-mode laser system to enable studies of soot formation dynamics in highly turbulent flames. Furthermore, to quantify the accuracy and uncertainty of relative soot volume fraction measurements, the temporal evolution of the LII field in laminar and turbulent flames is examined at various laser operating conditions. Under high-speed repetitive probing, it is found that LII signals are sensitive to changes in soot physical characteristics when operating at high laser fluences within the soot vaporization regime. For these laser conditions, strong planar LII signals aremore » observed at measurement rates up to 100 kHz but are primarily useful for qualitative tracking of soot structure dynamics. However, LII signals collected at lower fluences allow sequential planar measurements of the relative soot volume fraction with a sufficient signal-to-noise ratio at repetition rates of 10–50 kHz. Finally, guidelines for identifying and avoiding the onset of repetitive probe effects in the LII signals are discussed, along with other potential sources of measurement error and uncertainty.« less

Phonological Priming in Children with Hearing Loss: Effect of Speech Mode, Fidelity, and Lexical Status

PubMed Central

Jerger, Susan; Tye-Murray, Nancy; Damian, Markus F.; Abdi, Hervé

2016-01-01

Objectives Our research determined 1) how phonological priming of picture naming was affected by the mode (auditory-visual [AV] vs auditory), fidelity (intact vs non-intact auditory onsets), and lexical status (words vs nonwords) of speech stimuli in children with prelingual sensorineural hearing impairment (CHI) vs. children with normal hearing (CNH); and 2) how the degree of hearing impairment (HI), auditory word recognition, and age influenced results in CHI. Note that some of our AV stimuli were not the traditional bimodal input but instead they consisted of an intact consonant/rhyme in the visual track coupled to a non-intact onset/rhyme in the auditory track. Example stimuli for the word bag are: 1) AV: intact visual (b/ag) coupled to non-intact auditory (−b/ag) and 2) Auditory: static face coupled to the same non-intact auditory (−b/ag). Our question was whether the intact visual speech would “restore or fill-in” the non-intact auditory speech in which case performance for the same auditory stimulus would differ depending upon the presence/absence of visual speech. Design Participants were 62 CHI and 62 CNH whose ages had a group-mean and -distribution akin to that in the CHI group. Ages ranged from 4 to 14 years. All participants met the following criteria: 1) spoke English as a native language, 2) communicated successfully aurally/orally, and 3) had no diagnosed or suspected disabilities other than HI and its accompanying verbal problems. The phonological priming of picture naming was assessed with the multi-modal picture word task. Results Both CHI and CNH showed greater phonological priming from high than low fidelity stimuli and from AV than auditory speech. These overall fidelity and mode effects did not differ in the CHI vs. CNH—thus these CHI appeared to have sufficiently well specified phonological onset representations to support priming and visual speech did not appear to be a disproportionately important source of the CHI’s phonological knowledge. Two exceptions occurred, however. First—with regard to lexical status—both the CHI and CNH showed significantly greater phonological priming from the nonwords than words, a pattern consistent with the prediction that children are more aware of phonetics-phonology content for nonwords. This overall pattern of similarity between the groups was qualified by the finding that CHI showed more nearly equal priming by the high vs. low fidelity nonwords than the CNH; in other words, the CHI were less affected by the fidelity of the auditory input for nonwords. Second, auditory word recognition—but not degree of HI or age—uniquely influenced phonological priming by the nonwords presented AV. Conclusions With minor exceptions, phonological priming in CHI and CNH showed more similarities than differences. Importantly, we documented that the addition of visual speech significantly increased phonological priming in both groups. Clinically these data support intervention programs that view visual speech as a powerful asset for developing spoken language in CHI. PMID:27438867

Relations among Language Exposure, Phonological Memory, and Language Development in Spanish-English Bilingually-Developing Two-Year-Olds

PubMed Central

Parra, Marisol; Hoff, Erika; Core, Cynthia

2010-01-01

The relation of phonological memory to language experience and development was investigated in 41 Spanish-English bilingual first language learners. The children’s relative exposure to English and Spanish and phonological memory for English-like and Spanish-like nonwords were assessed at 22 months; their productive vocabulary and grammar in both languages were assessed at 25 months. Phonological memory for English- and Spanish-like nonwords were highly correlated, and each was related to vocabulary and grammar in both languages, suggesting a language-general component to phonological memory skill. In addition, there was evidence of language-specific benefits of language exposure to phonological memory skill and of language-specific benefits of phonological memory skill to language development. PMID:20828710

Illusory words: the roles of attention and of top-down constraints in conjoining letters to form words.

PubMed

Treisman, A; Souther, J

1986-02-01

When attention is divided among four briefly exposed syllables, subjects mistakenly detect targets whose letters are present in the display but in the wrong combinations. These illusory conjunctions are somewhat more frequent when the target is a word and when the distractors are nonwords, but the effects of lexical status are small, and no longer reach significance in free report of the same displays. Search performance is further impaired if the nonwords are unpronounceable consonant strings rather than consonant-vowel-consonant strings, but the decrement is due to missed targets rather than to increased conjunction errors. The results are discussed in relation to feature-integration theory and to current models of word perception.

Priming and attentional control of lexical and sublexical pathways during naming.

PubMed

Zevin, J D; Balota, D A

2000-01-01

A modified priming task was used to investigate whether skilled readers are able to adjust the degree to which lexical and sublexical information contribute to naming. On each trial, participants named 5 low-frequency exception word primes or 5 nonword primes before a target. The low-frequency exception word primes should have produced a greater dependence on lexical information, whereas the nonword primes should have produced a greater dependence on sublexical information. Across 4 experiments, the effects of lexicality, regularity, frequency, and imageability were all modulated in predictable ways on the basis of the notion that the primes directed attention to specific processing pathways. It is argued that these results are consistent with an attentional control hypothesis.

Preserved learning of novel information in amnesia: evidence for multiple memory systems.

PubMed

Gordon, B

1988-06-01

Four of five patients with marked global amnesia, and others with new learning impairments, showed normal processing facilitation for novel stimuli (nonwords) and/or for familiar stimuli (words) on a word/nonword (lexical) decision task. The data are interpreted as a reflection of the learning capabilities of in-line neural processing stages with multiple, distinct, informational codes. These in-line learning processes are separate from the recognition/recall memory impaired by amygdalohippocampal/dosomedial thalamic damage, but probably supplement such memory in some tasks in normal individuals. Preserved learning of novel information seems incompatible with explanations of spared learning in amnesia that are based on the episodic/semantic or memory/habit distinctions, but is consistent with the procedural/declarative hypothesis.

45 CFR 689.3 - Actions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-10-01

... Regulations Relating to Public Welfare (Continued) NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION RESEARCH MISCONDUCT § 689.3... period that an institutional official other than those guilty of misconduct certify the accuracy of... individual or institution to ensure that steps have been taken to prevent repetition of the misconduct. (iii...

45 CFR 689.3 - Actions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-10-01

... Regulations Relating to Public Welfare (Continued) NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION RESEARCH MISCONDUCT § 689.3... period that an institutional official other than those guilty of misconduct certify the accuracy of... individual or institution to ensure that steps have been taken to prevent repetition of the misconduct. (iii...

45 CFR 689.3 - Actions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-10-01

... Regulations Relating to Public Welfare (Continued) NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION RESEARCH MISCONDUCT § 689.3... period that an institutional official other than those guilty of misconduct certify the accuracy of... individual or institution to ensure that steps have been taken to prevent repetition of the misconduct. (iii...

Predicting maximal strength in trained postmenopausal woman.

PubMed

Kemmler, Wolfgang K; Lauber, Dirk; Wassermann, Alfred; Mayhew, Jerry L

2006-11-01

The purpose of this study was to present an equation that accurately predicts 1 repetition maximum (RM) over a wide range of repetitions to fatigue (RTF) for 4 different machine resistance exercises in postmenopausal women. Seventy trained women (age = 57.4 +/- 3.1 years) performed maximal and submaximal repetitions on leg press, bench press, rowing, and leg adduction machines at the conclusion of a 2-year training program. Maximal repetitions were performed on each exercise in the following ranges: 3-5RM, 6-10RM, 11-15RM, and 16-20RM. Special regard was taken to maintain the identical execution of each test (i.e., range of motion, starting angle, speed of movement). One cubic polynomial (w(i) [0.988-0.0000584 r(i)(3) + 0.00190 r(i)(2) + 0.0104 r(i),] where w(i) is the load of measurement I, and r(i) is the number of repetitions) accurately predicted 1RM from RTF with mean absolute differences between actual 1RM and predicted 1RM for the 4 exercises of 1.5-3.1% and with coefficients of variation of <3.3%. Equation accuracy was independent of the exercise type or the number of RTF. Thus, this study supported the validity of RTF to adequately estimate 1RM over a wide range of repetitions and within different exercises in trained, older female subjects.

Imitation of contrastive lexical stress in children with speech delay

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vick, Jennell C.; Moore, Christopher A.

2005-09-01

This study examined the relationship between acoustic correlates of stress in trochaic (strong-weak), spondaic (strong-strong), and iambic (weak-strong) nonword bisyllables produced by children (30-50) with normal speech acquisition and children with speech delay. Ratios comparing the acoustic measures (vowel duration, rms, and f0) of the first syllable to the second syllable were calculated to evaluate the extent to which each phonetic parameter was used to mark stress. In addition, a calculation of the variability of jaw movement in each bisyllable was made. Finally, perceptual judgments of accuracy of stress production were made. Analysis of perceptual judgments indicated a robust difference between groups: While both groups of children produced errors in imitating the contrastive lexical stress models (~40%), the children with normal speech acquisition tended to produce trochaic forms in substitution for other stress types, whereas children with speech delay showed no preference for trochees. The relationship between segmental acoustic parameters, kinematic variability, and the ratings of stress by trained listeners will be presented.

Replicability of sight word training and phonics training in poor readers: a randomised controlled trial

PubMed Central

Kohnen, S; Jones, K; Eve, P; Banales, E; Larsen, L; Castles, A

2015-01-01

Given the importance of effective treatments for children with reading impairment, paired with growing concern about the lack of scientific replication in psychological science, the aim of this study was to replicate a quasi-randomised trial of sight word and phonics training using a randomised controlled trial (RCT) design. One group of poor readers (N = 41) did 8 weeks of phonics training (i.e., phonological decoding) and then 8 weeks of sight word training (i.e., whole-word recognition). A second group did the reverse order of training. Sight word and phonics training each had a large and significant valid treatment effect on trained irregular words and word reading fluency. In addition, combined sight word and phonics training had a moderate and significant valid treatment effect on nonword reading accuracy and fluency. These findings demonstrate the reliability of both phonics and sight word training in treating poor readers in an era where the importance of scientific reliability is under close scrutiny. PMID:26019992

Phonology without semantics? Good enough for verbal short-term memory. Evidence from a patient with semantic dementia.

PubMed

Papagno, Costanza; Vernice, Mirta; Cecchetto, Carlo

2013-03-01

There is considerable evidence that long-term knowledge has an influence on short-term memory (STM) performance. This reflects the activation of long-term representations involved in perceiving and comprehending spoken language. Still, this type of long-term knowledge might be of two different kinds. STM performance might be facilitated by information about the meaning of the word, or, alternatively, by familiarity with its phonological form. We investigated these two alternatives by assessing word span in MC, a patient with semantic dementia. Four different lists of words were used: known words, words whose phonological form was known by the patient although she could not report its meaning, words that the patient did not recognize as words and judged as nonwords, nonwords. The patient's performance was compared to that of six matched controls. MC did not differ from controls in the first two types of lists and performed at the same level with both, while for words whose phonological form was unknown (and therefore not recognized as words) her performance was comparable to that with nonwords; also, with this type of item, she produced significantly more phonemic substitutions than controls. The results show that long-term knowledge facilitates immediate serial recall. However, this facilitation is due to familiarity with phonological representations rather than to knowledge of meaning. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Stop interfering: Stroop task conflict independence from informational conflict and interference.

PubMed

Kalanthroff, Eyal; Goldfarb, Liat; Usher, Marius; Henik, Avishai

2013-01-01

Performance of the Stroop task reflects two conflicts-informational (between the incongruent word and ink colour) and task (between relevant colour naming and irrelevant word reading). This is supported by findings showing that the anterior cingulate cortex is more activated by congruent and incongruent stimuli than by nonword neutral stimuli. Previously, researchers demonstrated behavioural evidence for task conflict-a reverse facilitation effect under a reduced task conflict control condition. The boundary conditions of this Stroop reverse facilitation effect are not yet clear. The current study aimed to investigate whether task conflict arises, and task control is needed, whenever there are two possible tasks, even if the irrelevant task cannot mislead one to give erroneous responses (i.e., stimuli do not contain an informational conflict). To this end, in both experiments no incongruent stimuli were presented. In Experiment 1, participants conducted a Stroop task with a high proportion of nonword neutrals and with a neutral/congruent cue in 50% of the trials. In Experiment 2, the nonword neutral was replaced by a real non-colour-word. We found the reverse facilitation effect in the noncued trials of Experiment 1. Moreover, as expected, this effect was eliminated when a noncolour neutral word that induced task conflict was used (Experiment 2). We conclude that task conflict control is reactively activated whenever there are at least two possible tasks, even in the absence of any possibility of informational conflict.

14 CFR 1275.106 - Administrative actions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 1275.106 Aeronautics and Space NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION RESEARCH MISCONDUCT § 1275... that an institutional official other than those guilty of research misconduct certify the accuracy of... institution to ensure that steps have been taken to prevent repetition of the research misconduct. (3) Group...

14 CFR 1275.106 - Administrative actions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... 1275.106 Aeronautics and Space NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION RESEARCH MISCONDUCT § 1275... that an institutional official other than those guilty of research misconduct certify the accuracy of... institution to ensure that steps have been taken to prevent repetition of the research misconduct. (3) Group...

14 CFR § 1275.106 - Administrative actions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... § 1275.106 Aeronautics and Space NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION RESEARCH MISCONDUCT... that an institutional official other than those guilty of research misconduct certify the accuracy of... institution to ensure that steps have been taken to prevent repetition of the research misconduct. (3) Group...

14 CFR 1275.106 - Administrative actions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... 1275.106 Aeronautics and Space NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION RESEARCH MISCONDUCT § 1275... that an institutional official other than those guilty of research misconduct certify the accuracy of... institution to ensure that steps have been taken to prevent repetition of the research misconduct. (3) Group...

14 CFR 1275.106 - Administrative actions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... 1275.106 Aeronautics and Space NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION RESEARCH MISCONDUCT § 1275... that an institutional official other than those guilty of research misconduct certify the accuracy of... institution to ensure that steps have been taken to prevent repetition of the research misconduct. (3) Group...

Item Analyses of Memory Differences

PubMed Central

Salthouse, Timothy A.

2017-01-01

Objective Although performance on memory and other cognitive tests is usually assessed with a score aggregated across multiple items, potentially valuable information is also available at the level of individual items. Method The current study illustrates how analyses of variance with item as one of the factors, and memorability analyses in which item accuracy in one group is plotted as a function of item accuracy in another group, can provide a more detailed characterization of the nature of group differences in memory. Data are reported for two memory tasks, word recall and story memory, across age, ability, repetition, delay, and longitudinal contrasts. Results The item-level analyses revealed evidence for largely uniform differences across items in the age, ability, and longitudinal contrasts, but differential patterns across items in the repetition contrast, and unsystematic item relations in the delay contrast. Conclusion Analyses at the level of individual items have the potential to indicate the manner by which group differences in the aggregate test score are achieved. PMID:27618285

Dosimetric Accuracy of a Dual Photon Energy Linac at Low Monitor Setting for Various Pulse Repetition Frequencies

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Sharma, Anil Kumar; Supe, Sanjay S.; Anantha, N.

2015-01-15

Accuracy of dose delivery at low monitor unit setting is studied for a dual photon energy linear accelerator. Dose delivered per MU is found to be constant for both the photon beams for MU settings above 30. For lower MUs there is definite deviation from the calibrated value and the error is found to be increasing as fewer MUs are set for dose delivery. This dose/MU ratio at low MU setting is found to be dose-rate dependent, showing an increasing trend with pulse repetition frequency (PRF). Also, the dosimetric ratio is observed to be mode dependent; its value for anmore » 18 MV beam is almost double that observed in the case of a 6 MV beam at very low MU setting. The magnitude of this error should be determined for each energy so that appropriate corrections can be applied if very low MUs are to be used.« less

Applications of the rep-PCR DNA fingerprinting technique to study microbial diversity, ecology and evolution.

PubMed

Ishii, Satoshi; Sadowsky, Michael J

2009-04-01

A large number of repetitive DNA sequences are found in multiple sites in the genomes of numerous bacteria, archaea and eukarya. While the functions of many of these repetitive sequence elements are unknown, they have proven to be useful as the basis of several powerful tools for use in molecular diagnostics, medical microbiology, epidemiological analyses and environmental microbiology. The repetitive sequence-based PCR or rep-PCR DNA fingerprint technique uses primers targeting several of these repetitive elements and PCR to generate unique DNA profiles or 'fingerprints' of individual microbial strains. Although this technique has been extensively used to examine diversity among variety of prokaryotic microorganisms, rep-PCR DNA fingerprinting can also be applied to microbial ecology and microbial evolution studies since it has the power to distinguish microbes at the strain or isolate level. Recent advancement in rep-PCR methodology has resulted in increased accuracy, reproducibility and throughput. In this minireview, we summarize recent improvements in rep-PCR DNA fingerprinting methodology, and discuss its applications to address fundamentally important questions in microbial ecology and evolution.

Accuracy and Reproducibility of Adipose Tissue Measurements in Young Infants by Whole Body Magnetic Resonance Imaging

PubMed Central

Bauer, Jan Stefan; Noël, Peter Benjamin; Vollhardt, Christiane; Much, Daniela; Degirmenci, Saliha; Brunner, Stefanie; Rummeny, Ernst Josef; Hauner, Hans

2015-01-01

Purpose MR might be well suited to obtain reproducible and accurate measures of fat tissues in infants. This study evaluates MR-measurements of adipose tissue in young infants in vitro and in vivo. Material and Methods MR images of ten phantoms simulating subcutaneous fat of an infant’s torso were obtained using a 1.5T MR scanner with and without simulated breathing. Scans consisted of a cartesian water-suppression turbo spin echo (wsTSE) sequence, and a PROPELLER wsTSE sequence. Fat volume was quantified directly and by MR imaging using k-means clustering and threshold-based segmentation procedures to calculate accuracy in vitro. Whole body MR was obtained in sleeping young infants (average age 67±30 days). This study was approved by the local review board. All parents gave written informed consent. To obtain reproducibility in vivo, cartesian and PROPELLER wsTSE sequences were repeated in seven and four young infants, respectively. Overall, 21 repetitions were performed for the cartesian sequence and 13 repetitions for the PROPELLER sequence. Results In vitro accuracy errors depended on the chosen segmentation procedure, ranging from 5.4% to 76%, while the sequence showed no significant influence. Artificial breathing increased the minimal accuracy error to 9.1%. In vivo reproducibility errors for total fat volume of the sleeping infants ranged from 2.6% to 3.4%. Neither segmentation nor sequence significantly influenced reproducibility. Conclusion With both cartesian and PROPELLER sequences an accurate and reproducible measure of body fat was achieved. Adequate segmentation was mandatory for high accuracy. PMID:25706876

Accuracy and reproducibility of adipose tissue measurements in young infants by whole body magnetic resonance imaging.

PubMed

Bauer, Jan Stefan; Noël, Peter Benjamin; Vollhardt, Christiane; Much, Daniela; Degirmenci, Saliha; Brunner, Stefanie; Rummeny, Ernst Josef; Hauner, Hans

2015-01-01

MR might be well suited to obtain reproducible and accurate measures of fat tissues in infants. This study evaluates MR-measurements of adipose tissue in young infants in vitro and in vivo. MR images of ten phantoms simulating subcutaneous fat of an infant's torso were obtained using a 1.5T MR scanner with and without simulated breathing. Scans consisted of a cartesian water-suppression turbo spin echo (wsTSE) sequence, and a PROPELLER wsTSE sequence. Fat volume was quantified directly and by MR imaging using k-means clustering and threshold-based segmentation procedures to calculate accuracy in vitro. Whole body MR was obtained in sleeping young infants (average age 67±30 days). This study was approved by the local review board. All parents gave written informed consent. To obtain reproducibility in vivo, cartesian and PROPELLER wsTSE sequences were repeated in seven and four young infants, respectively. Overall, 21 repetitions were performed for the cartesian sequence and 13 repetitions for the PROPELLER sequence. In vitro accuracy errors depended on the chosen segmentation procedure, ranging from 5.4% to 76%, while the sequence showed no significant influence. Artificial breathing increased the minimal accuracy error to 9.1%. In vivo reproducibility errors for total fat volume of the sleeping infants ranged from 2.6% to 3.4%. Neither segmentation nor sequence significantly influenced reproducibility. With both cartesian and PROPELLER sequences an accurate and reproducible measure of body fat was achieved. Adequate segmentation was mandatory for high accuracy.

Activating the critical lure during study is unnecessary for false recognition.

PubMed

Zeelenberg, René; Boot, Inge; Pecher, Diane

2005-06-01

Participants studied lists of nonwords (e.g., froost, floost, stoost, etc.) that were orthographic-phonologically similar to a nonpresented critical lure, which was also a nonword (e.g., ploost). Experiment 1 showed a high level of false recognition for the critical lure. Experiment 2 showed that the false recognition effect was also present for forewarned participants who were informed about the nature of the false recognition effect and told to avoid making false recognition judgments. The present results show that false recognition effects can be obtained even when the critical lure itself is not stored during study. This finding is problematic for accounts that attribute false memories to implicit associative responses or spreading activation but is easily explained by global familiarity models of recognition memory.

Predicting Reading Growth with Event-Related Potentials: Thinking Differently about Indexing “Responsiveness”

PubMed Central

Lemons, Christopher J.; Key, Alexandra P.F.; Fuchs, Douglas; Yoder, Paul J.; Fuchs, Lynn S.; Compton, Donald L.; Williams, Susan M.; Bouton, Bobette

2009-01-01

The purpose of this study was to determine if event-related potential (ERP) data collected during three reading-related tasks (Letter Sound Matching, Nonword Rhyming, and Nonword Reading) could be used to predict short-term reading growth on a curriculum-based measure of word identification fluency over 19 weeks in a sample of 29 first-grade children. Results indicate that ERP responses to the Letter Sound Matching task were predictive of reading change and remained so after controlling for two previously validated behavioral predictors of reading, Rapid Letter Naming and Segmenting. ERP data for the other tasks were not correlated with reading change. The potential for cognitive neuroscience to enhance current methods of indexing responsiveness in a response-to-intervention (RTI) model is discussed. PMID:20514353

Repetition blindness has a perceptual locus: evidence from online processing of targets in RSVP streams

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Johnston, James C.; Hochhaus, Larry; Ruthruff, Eric

2002-01-01

Four experiments tested whether repetition blindness (RB; reduced accuracy reporting repetitions of briefly displayed items) is a perceptual or a memory-recall phenomenon. RB was measured in rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) streams, with the task altered to reduce memory demands. In Experiment 1 only the number of targets (1 vs. 2) was reported, eliminating the need to remember target identities. Experiment 2 segregated repeated and nonrepeated targets into separate blocks to reduce bias against repeated targets. Experiments 3 and 4 required immediate "online" buttonpress responses to targets as they occurred. All 4 experiments showed very strong RB. Furthermore, the online response data showed clearly that the 2nd of the repeated targets is the one missed. The present results show that in the RSVP paradigm, RB occurs online during initial stimulus encoding and decision making. The authors argue that RB is indeed a perceptual phenomenon.

Development of A Two-Stage Procedure for the Automatic Recognition of Dysfluencies in the Speech of Children Who Stutter: I. Psychometric Procedures Appropriate for Selection of Training Material for Lexical Dysfluency Classifiers

PubMed Central

Howell, Peter; Sackin, Stevie; Glenn, Kazan

2007-01-01

This program of work is intended to develop automatic recognition procedures to locate and assess stuttered dysfluencies. This and the following article together, develop and test recognizers for repetitions and prolongations. The automatic recognizers classify the speech in two stages: In the first, the speech is segmented and in the second the segments are categorized. The units that are segmented are words. Here assessments by human judges on the speech of 12 children who stutter are described using a corresponding procedure. The accuracy of word boundary placement across judges, categorization of the words as fluent, repetition or prolongation, and duration of the different fluency categories are reported. These measures allow reliable instances of repetitions and prolongations to be selected for training and assessing the recognizers in the subsequent paper. PMID:9328878

An iterative learning control method with application for CNC machine tools

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kim, D.I.; Kim, S.

1996-01-01

A proportional, integral, and derivative (PID) type iterative learning controller is proposed for precise tracking control of industrial robots and computer numerical controller (CNC) machine tools performing repetitive tasks. The convergence of the output error by the proposed learning controller is guaranteed under a certain condition even when the system parameters are not known exactly and unknown external disturbances exist. As the proposed learning controller is repeatedly applied to the industrial robot or the CNC machine tool with the path-dependent repetitive task, the distance difference between the desired path and the actual tracked or machined path, which is one ofmore » the most significant factors in the evaluation of control performance, is progressively reduced. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed learning controller can improve machining accuracy when the CNC machine tool performs repetitive machining tasks.« less

Jerk-level synchronous repetitive motion scheme with gradient-type and zeroing-type dynamics algorithms applied to dual-arm redundant robot system control

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, Dechao; Zhang, Yunong

2017-10-01

Dual-arm redundant robot systems are usually required to handle primary tasks, repetitively and synchronously in practical applications. In this paper, a jerk-level synchronous repetitive motion scheme is proposed to remedy the joint-angle drift phenomenon and achieve the synchronous control of a dual-arm redundant robot system. The proposed scheme is novelly resolved at jerk level, which makes the joint variables, i.e. joint angles, joint velocities and joint accelerations, smooth and bounded. In addition, two types of dynamics algorithms, i.e. gradient-type (G-type) and zeroing-type (Z-type) dynamics algorithms, for the design of repetitive motion variable vectors, are presented in detail with the corresponding circuit schematics. Subsequently, the proposed scheme is reformulated as two dynamical quadratic programs (DQPs) and further integrated into a unified DQP (UDQP) for the synchronous control of a dual-arm robot system. The optimal solution of the UDQP is found by the piecewise-linear projection equation neural network. Moreover, simulations and comparisons based on a six-degrees-of-freedom planar dual-arm redundant robot system substantiate the operation effectiveness and tracking accuracy of the robot system with the proposed scheme for repetitive motion and synchronous control.

Steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP)-based communication: impact of harmonic frequency components

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Müller-Putz, Gernot R.; Scherer, Reinhold; Brauneis, Christian; Pfurtscheller, Gert

2005-12-01

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) can be realized on the basis of steady-state evoked potentials (SSEPs). These types of brain signals resulting from repetitive stimulation have the same fundamental frequency as the stimulation but also include higher harmonics. This study investigated how the classification accuracy of a 4-class BCI system can be improved by incorporating visually evoked harmonic oscillations. The current study revealed that the use of three SSVEP harmonics yielded a significantly higher classification accuracy than was the case for one or two harmonics. During feedback experiments, the five subjects investigated reached a classification accuracy between 42.5% and 94.4%.

Steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP)-based communication: impact of harmonic frequency components.

PubMed

Müller-Putz, Gernot R; Scherer, Reinhold; Brauneis, Christian; Pfurtscheller, Gert

2005-12-01

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) can be realized on the basis of steady-state evoked potentials (SSEPs). These types of brain signals resulting from repetitive stimulation have the same fundamental frequency as the stimulation but also include higher harmonics. This study investigated how the classification accuracy of a 4-class BCI system can be improved by incorporating visually evoked harmonic oscillations. The current study revealed that the use of three SSVEP harmonics yielded a significantly higher classification accuracy than was the case for one or two harmonics. During feedback experiments, the five subjects investigated reached a classification accuracy between 42.5% and 94.4%.

Auditory short-term memory capacity correlates with gray matter density in the left posterior STS in cognitively normal and dyslexic adults.

PubMed

Richardson, Fiona M; Ramsden, Sue; Ellis, Caroline; Burnett, Stephanie; Megnin, Odette; Catmur, Caroline; Schofield, Tom M; Leff, Alex P; Price, Cathy J

2011-12-01

A central feature of auditory STM is its item-limited processing capacity. We investigated whether auditory STM capacity correlated with regional gray and white matter in the structural MRI images from 74 healthy adults, 40 of whom had a prior diagnosis of developmental dyslexia whereas 34 had no history of any cognitive impairment. Using whole-brain statistics, we identified a region in the left posterior STS where gray matter density was positively correlated with forward digit span, backward digit span, and performance on a "spoonerisms" task that required both auditory STM and phoneme manipulation. Across tasks and participant groups, the correlation was highly significant even when variance related to reading and auditory nonword repetition was factored out. Although the dyslexics had poorer phonological skills, the effect of auditory STM capacity in the left STS was the same as in the cognitively normal group. We also illustrate that the anatomical location of this effect is in proximity to a lesion site recently associated with reduced auditory STM capacity in patients with stroke damage. This result, therefore, indicates that gray matter density in the posterior STS predicts auditory STM capacity in the healthy and damaged brain. In conclusion, we suggest that our present findings are consistent with the view that there is an overlap between the mechanisms that support language processing and auditory STM.

Dialect Variation and Reading: Is Change in Nonmainstream American English Use Related to Reading Achievement in First and Second Grades?

PubMed Central

Terry, Nicole Patton; Connor, Carol McDonald; Petscher, Yaacov; Conlin, Catherine Ross

2015-01-01

Purpose In this study, we examined (a) whether children who spoke Nonmainstream American English (NMAE) frequently in school at the beginning of 1st grade increased their use of Mainstream American English (MAE) through the end of 2nd grade, and whether increasing MAE use was associated with (b) language and reading skills and school context and (c) greater gains in reading skills. Method A longitudinal design was implemented with 49 children who spoke NMAE moderately to strongly. Spoken production of NMAE forms, word reading, and reading comprehension were measured at the beginning, middle, and end of 1st and 2nd grades. Various oral language skills were also measured at the beginning of 1st grade. Results Results indicate that most children increased their MAE production during 1st grade and maintained these levels in 2nd grade. Increasing MAE use was predicted by children’s expressive vocabulary and nonword repetition skills at the beginning of 1st grade. Finally, the more children increased their MAE production, the greater were their reading gains from 1st grade through 2nd grade. Conclusions The findings extend previous reports of a significant association between NMAE use and specific reading skills among young children and have implications for theory, educational practice, and future research. PMID:22199203

Relation between Working Memory Capacity and Auditory Stream Segregation in Children with Auditory Processing Disorder.

PubMed

Lotfi, Yones; Mehrkian, Saiedeh; Moossavi, Abdollah; Zadeh, Soghrat Faghih; Sadjedi, Hamed

2016-03-01

This study assessed the relationship between working memory capacity and auditory stream segregation by using the concurrent minimum audible angle in children with a diagnosed auditory processing disorder (APD). The participants in this cross-sectional, comparative study were 20 typically developing children and 15 children with a diagnosed APD (age, 9-11 years) according to the subtests of multiple-processing auditory assessment. Auditory stream segregation was investigated using the concurrent minimum audible angle. Working memory capacity was evaluated using the non-word repetition and forward and backward digit span tasks. Nonparametric statistics were utilized to compare the between-group differences. The Pearson correlation was employed to measure the degree of association between working memory capacity and the localization tests between the 2 groups. The group with APD had significantly lower scores than did the typically developing subjects in auditory stream segregation and working memory capacity. There were significant negative correlations between working memory capacity and the concurrent minimum audible angle in the most frontal reference location (0° azimuth) and lower negative correlations in the most lateral reference location (60° azimuth) in the children with APD. The study revealed a relationship between working memory capacity and auditory stream segregation in children with APD. The research suggests that lower working memory capacity in children with APD may be the possible cause of the inability to segregate and group incoming information.

Deficits in comprehending wh-questions in children with hearing loss - the contribution of phonological short-term memory and syntactic complexity.

PubMed

Penke, Martina; Wimmer, Eva

2018-01-01

The aim of the study is to investigate if German children with hearing loss (HL) display persisting problems in comprehending complex sentences and to find out whether these problems can be linked to limitations in phonological short-term memory (PSTM). A who-question comprehension test (picture pointing) and a nonword repetition (NWR) task were conducted with 21 German children with bilateral sensorineural HL (ages 3-4) and with age-matched 19 normal hearing (NH) children. Follow-up data (ages 6-8) are reported for 10 of the children with HL. The data reveal that the comprehension of who-questions as well as PSTM was significantly more impaired in children with HL than in children with NH. For both groups of participants, there were no correlations between question comprehension scores and performance in the NWR test. Syntactic complexity (subject vs. object question) affected question comprehension in children with HL, however, these problems were overcome at school age. In conclusion, the data indicate that a hearing loss affects the comprehension of complex sentences. The observed problems did, however, not persist and were, therefore, unlikely to be caused by a genuine syntactic deficit. For the tested wh-questions, there is no indication that syntactic comprehension problems of children with HL are due to limitations in PSTM.

The Development of English as a Second Language With and Without Specific Language Impairment: Clinical Implications.

PubMed

Paradis, Johanne

2016-02-01

The purpose of this research forum article is to provide an overview of typical and atypical development of English as a second language (L2) and to present strategies for clinical assessment with English language learners (ELLs). A review of studies examining the lexical, morphological, narrative, and verbal memory abilities of ELLs is organized around 3 topics: timeframe and characteristics of typical English L2 development, comparison of the English L2 development of children with and without specific language impairment (SLI), and strategies for more effective assessment with ELLs. ELLs take longer than 3 years to converge on monolingual norms and approach monolingual norms asynchronously across linguistic subdomains. Individual variation is predicted by age, first language, language learning aptitude, length of exposure to English in school, maternal education, and richness of the English environment outside school. ELLs with SLI acquire English more slowly than ELLs with typical development; their morphological and nonword repetition abilities differentiate them the most. Use of strategies such as parent questionnaires on first language development and ELL norm referencing can result in accurate discrimination of ELLs with SLI. Variability in the language abilities of ELLs presents challenges for clinical practice. Increased knowledge of English language learning development with and without SLI together with evidence-based alternative assessment strategies can assist in overcoming these challenges.

The relationship between phonological memory, receptive vocabulary, and fast mapping in young children with specific language impairment.

PubMed

Gray, Shelley

2006-10-01

This study assessed the fast mapping performance of children with specific language impairment (SLI) across the preschool to kindergarten age span in relation to their phonological memory and vocabulary development. Fifty-three children diagnosed with SLI and 53 children with normal language (NL) matched for age and gender (30 three-year-olds, 18 four-year-olds, 28 five-year-olds, and 30 six-year-olds) participated. Children's phonological memory was assessed using nonword repetition and digit span tasks. Receptive vocabulary was assessed using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-III. Children learned the names for 8 objects during 2 fast mapping tasks. Overall, the NL group demonstrated significantly better performance on phonological memory and vocabulary measures across the age span; however, performance on the fast mapping task differed significantly only at age 5. Phonological memory and existing receptive vocabulary did not predict fast mapping ability. The phonological memory skills of preschoolers with NL and SLI followed a similar developmental pattern, but the SLI group consistently scored significantly lower than the NL group. Overall, the NL group showed significantly better receptive vocabulary, with evidence that between-group differences increased at age 6. Neither short-term phonological memory nor receptive vocabulary predicted fast mapping comprehension or production performance, even though both have been shown to correlate with later stages of word learning.

[Prediction of modality-specific working memory performance in kindergarten age].

PubMed

Kiese-Himmel, Christiane

2018-04-10

Working memory (WM) as a central cognitive construct is a fundamental prerequisite for learning and provides a marker of developmental disorders. It has received considerable attention in recent years. Here, multivariate regression analyses using generalized linear models were conducted to determine predictor variables for phonological and visuospatial WM. The phonological WM was investigated by repetition of non-words (subtest PGN of the German SETK 3-5) and number recall (K-ABC-subtest), the visuospatial WM by the imitation of a sequence hand movements (K-ABC-subtest hand movements). The estimation of intelligence was operationalized by the performance in the K-ABC-scale "Simultaneous Processing". Kindergarten kids (N = 169; 49 % boys; 51 % girls), mostly with migration background and German as second language (mean age: 45.9; SD 6.2; min 36, max 61 months). They visited the kindergarten at the time of testing for 9.9 (SD 6.9) months, on average and had an average intelligence. Independent variables were chronological age, gender, kindergarten attendance until the test examination, intelligence, migration background. Both phonological and visuospatial working WM performance were on average not reduced. Chronological age and simultaneous processing were found to be significant predictors for the performance in all WM tests. In the age from 36 to 61 months both working memory systems can be described as a congenital, maturity-dependent and rather gender non-specific mechanism. © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.

Spectral interpolation - Zero fill or convolution. [image processing

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Forman, M. L.

1977-01-01

Zero fill, or augmentation by zeros, is a method used in conjunction with fast Fourier transforms to obtain spectral spacing at intervals closer than obtainable from the original input data set. In the present paper, an interpolation technique (interpolation by repetitive convolution) is proposed which yields values accurate enough for plotting purposes and which lie within the limits of calibration accuracies. The technique is shown to operate faster than zero fill, since fewer operations are required. The major advantages of interpolation by repetitive convolution are that efficient use of memory is possible (thus avoiding the difficulties encountered in decimation in time FFTs) and that is is easy to implement.

A Complete and Accurate Ab Initio Repeat Finding Algorithm.

PubMed

Lian, Shuaibin; Chen, Xinwu; Wang, Peng; Zhang, Xiaoli; Dai, Xianhua

2016-03-01

It has become clear that repetitive sequences have played multiple roles in eukaryotic genome evolution including increasing genetic diversity through mutation, changes in gene expression and facilitating generation of novel genes. However, identification of repetitive elements can be difficult in the ab initio manner. Currently, some classical ab initio tools of finding repeats have already presented and compared. The completeness and accuracy of detecting repeats of them are little pool. To this end, we proposed a new ab initio repeat finding tool, named HashRepeatFinder, which is based on hash index and word counting. Furthermore, we assessed the performances of HashRepeatFinder with other two famous tools, such as RepeatScout and Repeatfinder, in human genome data hg19. The results indicated the following three conclusions: (1) The completeness of HashRepeatFinder is the best one among these three compared tools in almost all chromosomes, especially in chr9 (8 times of RepeatScout, 10 times of Repeatfinder); (2) in terms of detecting large repeats, HashRepeatFinder also performed best in all chromosomes, especially in chr3 (24 times of RepeatScout and 250 times of Repeatfinder) and chr19 (12 times of RepeatScout and 60 times of Repeatfinder); (3) in terms of accuracy, HashRepeatFinder can merge the abundant repeats with high accuracy.

A Report on IRI Scoring and Interpretation.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Anderson, Betty

Noting that most classroom teachers use informal reading inventories (IRI) as diagnostic instruments, a study examined what oral reading accuracy level is most appropriate for the instructional level and whether repetitions should be counted as oral reading errors. Randomly selected students from the second through fifth grades at two elementary…

The role of spatial attention in visual word processing

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mccann, Robert S.; Folk, Charles L.; Johnston, James C.

1992-01-01

Subjects made lexical decisions on a target letter string presented above or below fixation. In Experiments 1 and 2, target location was cued 100 ms in advance of target onset. Responses were faster on validly than on invalidly cued trials. In Experiment 3, the target was sometimes accompanied by irrelevant stimuli on the other side of fixation; in such cases, responses were slowed (a spatial filtering effect). Both cuing and filtering effects on response time were additive with effects of word frequency and lexical status (words vs. nonwords). These findings are difficult to reconcile with claims that spatial attention is less involved in processing familiar words than in unfamiliar words and nonwords. The results can be reconciled with a late-selection locus of spatial attention only with difficulty, but are easily explained by early-selection models.

When orthographic neighbors fail to facilitate.

PubMed

Janack, Tracy; Pastizzo, Matthew J; Beth Feldman, Laurie

2004-01-01

Forward masked word primes that differed from the target in the initial, the final or both the initial and final positions tended to slow target decision latencies and there were no significant differences among prime types. After forward masked nonword primes we observed non significant facilitation when primes differed from the target by one letter in either the initial or final position and significant inhibition when primes differed in both initial and final positions. The patterns did not differ significantly for targets with large and with small neighborhoods. Only in post hoc analyses was there any indication of facilitation after nonword neighbor primes and it appeared only when body neighborhood was small. For slower participants, neighbors tended to facilitate target decision latencies while for relatively fast readers showed neighbors made inhibition that tended to vary with amount of mismatch.

Cardiovascular change during encoding predicts the nonconscious mere exposure effect.

PubMed

Ladd, Sandra L; Toscano, William B; Cowings, Patricia S; Gabrieli, John D E

2014-01-01

These studies examined memory encoding to determine whether the mere exposure effect could be categorized as a form of conceptual or perceptual implicit priming and, if it was not conceptual or perceptual, whether cardiovascular psychophysiology could reveal its nature. Experiment 1 examined the effects of study phase level of processing on recognition, the mere exposure effect, and word identification implicit priming. Deep relative to shallow processing improved recognition but did not influence the mere exposure effect for nonwords or word identification implicit priming for words. Experiments 2 and 3 examined the effect of study-test changes in font and orientation, respectively, on the mere exposure effect and word identification implicit priming. Different study-test font and orientation reduced word identification implicit priming but had no influence on the mere exposure effect. Experiments 4 and 5 developed and used, respectively, a cardiovascular psychophysiological implicit priming paradigm to examine whether stimulus-specific cardiovascular reactivity at study predicted the mere exposure effect at test. Blood volume pulse change at study was significantly greater for nonwords that were later preferred than for nonwords that were not preferred at test. There was no difference in blood volume pulse change for words at study that were later either identified or not identified at test. Fluency effects, at encoding or retrieval, are an unlikely explanation for these behavioral and cardiovascular findings. The relation of blood volume pulse to affect suggests that an affective process that is not conceptual or perceptual contributes to the mere exposure effect.

A causal test of the motor theory of speech perception: A case of impaired speech production and spared speech perception

PubMed Central

Stasenko, Alena; Bonn, Cory; Teghipco, Alex; Garcea, Frank E.; Sweet, Catherine; Dombovy, Mary; McDonough, Joyce; Mahon, Bradford Z.

2015-01-01

In the last decade, the debate about the causal role of the motor system in speech perception has been reignited by demonstrations that motor processes are engaged during the processing of speech sounds. However, the exact role of the motor system in auditory speech processing remains elusive. Here we evaluate which aspects of auditory speech processing are affected, and which are not, in a stroke patient with dysfunction of the speech motor system. The patient’s spontaneous speech was marked by frequent phonological/articulatory errors, and those errors were caused, at least in part, by motor-level impairments with speech production. We found that the patient showed a normal phonemic categorical boundary when discriminating two nonwords that differ by a minimal pair (e.g., ADA-AGA). However, using the same stimuli, the patient was unable to identify or label the nonword stimuli (using a button-press response). A control task showed that he could identify speech sounds by speaker gender, ruling out a general labeling impairment. These data suggest that the identification (i.e. labeling) of nonword speech sounds may involve the speech motor system, but that the perception of speech sounds (i.e., discrimination) does not require the motor system. This means that motor processes are not causally involved in perception of the speech signal, and suggest that the motor system may be used when other cues (e.g., meaning, context) are not available. PMID:25951749

The Role of Lexical Stress on the Use of Vocal Fry in Young Adult Female Speakers.

PubMed

Gibson, Todd A

2017-01-01

Vocal fry is a voice register often used by young adult women for sociolinguistic purposes. Some acoustic correlates of lexical stress, however, appear incompatible with the use of vocal fry. The objective of this study was to systematically examine the role of lexical stress in the use of vocal fry by young adult women. This is a semi-randomized controlled laboratory study. Fifty female undergraduate students were recorded repeating one-, two-, three-, and four-syllable nonwords that conformed to English phonotactics. Nonwords were presented in order from shorter to longer lengths, with stimuli randomized within syllable length. Perceptual analyses of recordings were augmented by acoustic analyses to identify each syllable in which vocal fry occurred. Eighty-six percent of participants produced at least one episode of vocal fry. Vocal fry was more likely to occur in unstressed than stressed position, and the likelihood increased as distance from the stressed syllable increased. There was considerable variability in the use of vocal fry. Frequent and infrequent users varied on the degree to which they used vocal fry in single-syllable nonwords. Vocal fry use persists among young adult women even in the absence of syntactic and pragmatic influences. Lexical stress appeared to dramatically reduce the use of vocal fry. Patterns of vocal fry use appeared to be different for frequent and infrequent users of this vocal register. Copyright © 2017 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

What’s in a Name? Sound Symbolism and Gender in First Names

PubMed Central

2015-01-01

Although the arbitrariness of language has been considered one of its defining features, studies have demonstrated that certain phonemes tend to be associated with certain kinds of meaning. A well-known example is the Bouba/Kiki effect, in which nonwords like bouba are associated with round shapes while nonwords like kiki are associated with sharp shapes. These sound symbolic associations have thus far been limited to nonwords. Here we tested whether or not the Bouba/Kiki effect extends to existing lexical stimuli; in particular, real first names. We found that the roundness/sharpness of the phonemes in first names impacted whether the names were associated with round or sharp shapes in the form of character silhouettes (Experiments 1a and 1b). We also observed an association between femaleness and round shapes, and maleness and sharp shapes. We next investigated whether this association would extend to the features of language and found the proportion of round-sounding phonemes was related to name gender (Analysis of Category Norms). Finally, we investigated whether sound symbolic associations for first names would be observed for other abstract properties; in particular, personality traits (Experiment 2). We found that adjectives previously judged to be either descriptive of a figuratively ‘round’ or a ‘sharp’ personality were associated with names containing either round- or sharp-sounding phonemes, respectively. These results demonstrate that sound symbolic associations extend to existing lexical stimuli, providing a new example of non-arbitrary mappings between form and meaning. PMID:26016856

What's in a Name? Sound Symbolism and Gender in First Names.

PubMed

Sidhu, David M; Pexman, Penny M

2015-01-01

Although the arbitrariness of language has been considered one of its defining features, studies have demonstrated that certain phonemes tend to be associated with certain kinds of meaning. A well-known example is the Bouba/Kiki effect, in which nonwords like bouba are associated with round shapes while nonwords like kiki are associated with sharp shapes. These sound symbolic associations have thus far been limited to nonwords. Here we tested whether or not the Bouba/Kiki effect extends to existing lexical stimuli; in particular, real first names. We found that the roundness/sharpness of the phonemes in first names impacted whether the names were associated with round or sharp shapes in the form of character silhouettes (Experiments 1a and 1b). We also observed an association between femaleness and round shapes, and maleness and sharp shapes. We next investigated whether this association would extend to the features of language and found the proportion of round-sounding phonemes was related to name gender (Analysis of Category Norms). Finally, we investigated whether sound symbolic associations for first names would be observed for other abstract properties; in particular, personality traits (Experiment 2). We found that adjectives previously judged to be either descriptive of a figuratively 'round' or a 'sharp' personality were associated with names containing either round- or sharp-sounding phonemes, respectively. These results demonstrate that sound symbolic associations extend to existing lexical stimuli, providing a new example of non-arbitrary mappings between form and meaning.

Phonological and orthographic influences in the bouba-kiki effect.

PubMed

Cuskley, Christine; Simner, Julia; Kirby, Simon

2017-01-01

We examine a high-profile phenomenon known as the bouba-kiki effect, in which non-word names are assigned to abstract shapes in systematic ways (e.g. rounded shapes are preferentially labelled bouba over kiki). In a detailed evaluation of the literature, we show that most accounts of the effect point to predominantly or entirely iconic cross-sensory mappings between acoustic or articulatory properties of sound and shape as the mechanism underlying the effect. However, these accounts have tended to confound the acoustic or articulatory properties of non-words with another fundamental property: their written form. We compare traditional accounts of direct audio or articulatory-visual mapping with an account in which the effect is heavily influenced by matching between the shapes of graphemes and the abstract shape targets. The results of our two studies suggest that the dominant mechanism underlying the effect for literate subjects is matching based on aligning letter curvature and shape roundedness (i.e. non-words with curved letters are matched to round shapes). We show that letter curvature is strong enough to significantly influence word-shape associations even in auditory tasks, where written word forms are never presented to participants. However, we also find an additional phonological influence in that voiced sounds are preferentially linked with rounded shapes, although this arises only in a purely auditory word-shape association task. We conclude that many previous investigations of the bouba-kiki effect may not have given appropriate consideration or weight to the influence of orthography among literate subjects.

Study on Parameter Identification of Assembly Robot based on Screw Theory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yun, Shi; Xiaodong, Zhang

2017-11-01

The kinematic model of assembly robot is one of the most important factors affecting repetitive precision. In order to improve the accuracy of model positioning, this paper first establishes the exponential product model of ER16-1600 assembly robot on the basis of screw theory, and then based on iterative least squares method, using ER16-1600 model robot parameter identification. By comparing the experiment before and after the calibration, it is proved that the method has obvious improvement on the positioning accuracy of the assembly robot.

LP-search and its use in analysis of the accuracy of control systems with acoustical models

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sergeyev, V. I.; Sobol, I. M.; Statnikov, R. B.; Statnikov, I. N.

1973-01-01

The LP-search is proposed as an analog of the Monte Carlo method for finding values in nonlinear statistical systems. It is concluded that: To attain the required accuracy in solution to the problem of control for a statistical system in the LP-search, a considerably smaller number of tests is required than in the Monte Carlo method. The LP-search allows the possibility of multiple repetitions of tests under identical conditions and observability of the output variables of the system.

Optically stabilized Erbium fiber frequency comb with hybrid mode-locking and a broad tunable range of repetition rate.

PubMed

Yang, Honglei; Wu, Xuejian; Zhang, Hongyuan; Zhao, Shijie; Yang, Lijun; Wei, Haoyun; Li, Yan

2016-12-01

We present an optically stabilized Erbium fiber frequency comb with a broad repetition rate tuning range based on a hybrid mode-locked oscillator. We lock two comb modes to narrow-linewidth reference lasers in turn to investigate the best performance of control loops. The control bandwidth of fast and slow piezoelectric transducers reaches 70 kHz, while that of pump current modulation with phase-lead compensation is extended to 32 kHz, exceeding laser intrinsic response. Eventually, simultaneous lock of both loops is realized to totally phase-stabilize the comb, which will facilitate precision dual-comb spectroscopy, laser ranging, and timing distribution. In addition, a 1.8-MHz span of the repetition rate is achieved by an automatic optical delay line that is helpful in manufacturing a secondary comb with a similar repetition rate. The oscillator is housed in a homemade temperature-controlled box with an accuracy of ±0.02  K, which not only keeps high signal-to-noise ratio of the beat notes with reference lasers, but also guarantees self-starting at the same mode-locking every time.

Method for measuring retardation of infrared wave-plate by modulated-polarized visible light

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Ying; Song, Feijun

2012-11-01

A new method for precisely measuring the optical phase retardation of wave-plates in the infrared spectral region is presented by using modulated-polarized visible light. An electro-optic modulator is used to accurately determine the zero point by the frequency-doubled signal of the Modulated-polarized light. A Babinet-Soleil compensator is employed to make the phase delay compensation. Based on this method, an instrument is set up to measure the retardations of the infrared wave-plates with visible region laser. Measurement results with high accuracy and sound repetition are obtained by simple calculation. Its measurement precision is less than and repetitive precision is within 0.3%.

Key Skills for Science Learning: The Importance of Text Cohesion and Reading Ability

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hall, Sophie Susannah; Maltby, John; Filik, Ruth; Paterson, Kevin B.

2016-01-01

To explore the importance of text cohesion, we conducted two experiments. We measured online (reading times) and offline (comprehension accuracy) processes for texts that were high and low cohesion. In study one (n?=?60), we manipulated referential cohesion using noun repetition (high cohesion) and synonymy (low cohesion). Students showed enhanced…

A Reappraisal of the 4/3/2 Activity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boers, Frank

2014-01-01

In the 4/3/2 activity learners deliver the same talk three times under increasing time pressure. The activity is intended first and foremost to foster fluency, but accuracy and complexity have also been said to benefit from this activity. The present study investigates whether immediate repetition of monologues under increasing time pressure…

Transcribing Nonsense Words: The Effect of Numbers of Voices and Repetitions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Knight, Rachael-Anne

2010-01-01

Transcription skills are crucially important to all phoneticians, and particularly for speech and language therapists who may use transcriptions to make decisions about diagnosis and intervention. Whilst interest in factors affecting transcription accuracy is increasing, there are still a number of issues that are yet to be investigated. The…

Priming Contour-Deleted Images: Evidence for Immediate Representations in Visual Object Recognition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Biederman, Irving; Cooper, Eric E.

1991-01-01

Speed and accuracy of identification of pictures of objects are facilitated by prior viewing. Contributions of image features, convex or concave components, and object models in a repetition priming task were explored in 2 studies involving 96 college students. Results provide evidence of intermediate representations in visual object recognition.…

When eye movements express memory for old and new scenes in the absence of awareness and independent of hippocampus

PubMed Central

Smith, Christine N.; Squire, Larry R.

2017-01-01

Eye movements can reflect memory. For example, participants make fewer fixations and sample fewer regions when viewing old versus new scenes (the repetition effect). It is unclear whether the repetition effect requires that participants have knowledge (awareness) of the old–new status of the scenes or if it can occur independent of knowledge about old–new status. It is also unclear whether the repetition effect is hippocampus-dependent or hippocampus-independent. A complication is that testing conscious memory for the scenes might interfere with the expression of unconscious (unaware), experience-dependent eye movements. In experiment 1, 75 volunteers freely viewed old and new scenes without knowledge that memory for the scenes would later be tested. Participants then made memory judgments and confidence judgments for each scene during a surprise recognition memory test. Participants exhibited the repetition effect regardless of the accuracy or confidence associated with their memory judgments (i.e., the repetition effect was independent of their awareness of the old–new status of each scene). In experiment 2, five memory-impaired patients with medial temporal lobe damage and six controls also viewed old and new scenes without expectation of memory testing. Both groups exhibited the repetition effect, even though the patients were impaired at recognizing which scenes were old and which were new. Thus, when participants viewed scenes without expectation of memory testing, eye movements associated with old and new scenes reflected unconscious, hippocampus-independent memory. These findings are consistent with the formulation that, when memory is expressed independent of awareness, memory is hippocampus-independent. PMID:28096499

Does Top-Down Feedback Modulate the Encoding of Orthographic Representations During Visual-Word Recognition?

PubMed

Perea, Manuel; Marcet, Ana; Vergara-Martínez, Marta

2016-09-01

In masked priming lexical decision experiments, there is a matched-case identity advantage for nonwords, but not for words (e.g., ERTAR-ERTAR <  ertar-ERTAR; ALTAR-ALTAR = altar-ALTAR). This dissociation has been interpreted in terms of feedback from higher levels of processing during orthographic encoding. Here, we examined whether a matched-case identity advantage also occurs for words when top-down feedback is minimized. We employed a task that taps prelexical orthographic processes: the masked prime same-different task. For "same" trials, results showed faster response times for targets when preceded by a briefly presented matched-case identity prime than when preceded by a mismatched-case identity prime. Importantly, this advantage was similar in magnitude for nonwords and words. This finding constrains the interplay of bottom-up versus top-down mechanisms in models of visual-word identification.

Ideophones in Japanese modulate the P2 and late positive complex responses

PubMed Central

Lockwood, Gwilym; Tuomainen, Jyrki

2015-01-01

Sound-symbolism, or the direct link between sound and meaning, is typologically and behaviorally attested across languages. However, neuroimaging research has mostly focused on artificial non-words or individual segments, which do not represent sound-symbolism in natural language. We used EEG to compare Japanese ideophones, which are phonologically distinctive sound-symbolic lexical words, and arbitrary adverbs during a sentence reading task. Ideophones elicit a larger visual P2 response than arbitrary adverbs, as well as a sustained late positive complex. Our results and previous literature suggest that the larger P2 may indicate the integration of sound and sensory information by association in response to the distinctive phonology of ideophones. The late positive complex may reflect the facilitated lexical retrieval of arbitrary words in comparison to ideophones. This account provides new evidence that ideophones exhibit similar cross-modal correspondences to those which have been proposed for non-words and individual sounds. PMID:26191031

Is a cerebellar deficit the underlying cause of reading disabilities?

PubMed

Irannejad, Shahrzad; Savage, Robert

2012-04-01

This study investigated whether children with dyslexia differed in their performance on reading, phonological, rapid naming, motor, and cerebellar-related tasks and automaticity measures compared to reading age (RA)-matched and chronological age (CA)-matched control groups. Participants were 51 children attending mainstream English elementary schools in Quebec. All participants completed measures of IQ, word and nonword reading fluency, elision, nonword decoding, rapid naming, bead threading, peg moving, toe tapping, postural stability, and muscle tone. Results from both group contrasts and analyses at the individual case level did not provide support for claims of motor-cerebellar involvement in either typical or atypical reading acquisition. Results were more consistent with a phonological core process account of both typical reading and reading difficulty. Phonological deficits for children with dyslexia compared to RA-matched controls were, however, only evident in group contrasts. Findings thus also have important implications for identifying at-risk readers among their same-aged peers.

What does a patient with semantic dementia remember in verbal short-term memory? Order and sound but not words.

PubMed

Majerus, Steve; Norris, Dennis; Patterson, Karalyn

2007-03-01

In this study, we explored capacities for three different aspects of short-term verbal memory in patients with semantic dementia. As expected, the two patients had poor recall for lexico-semantic item information, as assessed by immediate serial recall of word lists. In contrast, their short-term memory for phonological information was preserved, as evidenced by normal performance for immediate serial recall of nonword lists, with normal or increased nonword phonotactic-frequency effects, and increased sensitivity to phonological lures in a delayed probe recognition task. Furthermore, the patients appeared to have excellent memory for the serial order of the words in a list. These data provide further support for the proposal that language knowledge is a major determining factor of verbal STM capacity, but they also highlight the necessary distinction of processes involved in item and order recall, as proposed by recent models of STM.

Overlearned responses hinder S-R binding.

PubMed

Moeller, Birte; Frings, Christian

2017-01-01

Two mechanisms that are important for human action control are the integration of individual action plans (see Hommel, Müsseler, Aschersleben, & Prinz, 2001) and the automatization of overlearned actions to familiar stimuli (see Logan, 1988). In the present study, we analyzed the influence of automatization on action plan integration. Integration with pronunciation responses were compared for response incompatible word and nonword stimuli. Stimulus-response binding effects were observed for nonwords. In contrast, words that automatically triggered an overlearned pronunciation response were not integrated with pronunciation of a different word. That is, automatized response retrieval hindered binding effects regarding the retrieving stimulus and a new response. The results are a first indication of the way that binding and learning processes interact, and might also be a first step to understanding the more complex interdependency of the processes responsible for stimulus-response binding in action control and stimulus-response associations in learning research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Early print-tuned ERP response with minimal involvement of linguistic processing in Japanese Hiragana strings.

PubMed

Okumura, Yasuko; Kasai, Tetsuko; Murohashi, Harumitsu

2014-04-16

The act of reading leads to the development of specific neural responses for print, the most frequently reported of which is the left occipitotemporal N170 component of event-related potentials. However, it remains unclear whether this electrophysiological response solely involves print-tuned neural activities. The present study examined an early print-tuned event-related potential response with minimal involvement of linguistic processing in a nonalphabetic language. Japanese Hiragana words, nonwords, and alphanumeric symbol strings were presented rapidly and the task was to detect the change in color of a fixation cross to restrict linguistic processing. As a result, Hiragana words and nonwords elicited a larger posterior N1 than alphanumeric symbol strings bilaterally, irrespective of intercharacter spacing. The fact that this N1 was enhanced specifically for rapidly presented Hiragana strings suggests the existence of print-tuned neural processes that are relatively independent of the influence of linguistic processing.

Deep learning of orthographic representations in baboons.

PubMed

Hannagan, Thomas; Ziegler, Johannes C; Dufau, Stéphane; Fagot, Joël; Grainger, Jonathan

2014-01-01

What is the origin of our ability to learn orthographic knowledge? We use deep convolutional networks to emulate the primate's ventral visual stream and explore the recent finding that baboons can be trained to discriminate English words from nonwords. The networks were exposed to the exact same sequence of stimuli and reinforcement signals as the baboons in the experiment, and learned to map real visual inputs (pixels) of letter strings onto binary word/nonword responses. We show that the networks' highest levels of representations were indeed sensitive to letter combinations as postulated in our previous research. The model also captured the key empirical findings, such as generalization to novel words, along with some intriguing inter-individual differences. The present work shows the merits of deep learning networks that can simulate the whole processing chain all the way from the visual input to the response while allowing researchers to analyze the complex representations that emerge during the learning process.

Phonological-Lexical Feedback during Early Abstract Encoding: The Case of Deaf Readers

PubMed Central

Perea, Manuel; Marcet, Ana; Vergara-Martínez, Marta

2016-01-01

In the masked priming technique, physical identity between prime and target enjoys an advantage over nominal identity in nonwords (GEDA-GEDA faster than geda-GEDA). However, nominal identity overrides physical identity in words (e.g., REAL-REAL similar to real-REAL). Here we tested whether the lack of an advantage of the physical identity condition for words was due to top-down feedback from phonological-lexical information. We examined this issue with deaf readers, as their phonological representations are not as fully developed as in hearing readers. Results revealed that physical identity enjoyed a processing advantage over nominal identity not only in nonwords but also in words (GEDA-GEDA faster than geda-GEDA; REAL-REAL faster than real-REAL). This suggests the existence of fundamental differences in the early stages of visual word recognition of hearing and deaf readers, possibly related to the amount of feedback from higher levels of information. PMID:26731110

Familiar Tonal Context Improves Accuracy of Pitch Interval Perception.

PubMed

Graves, Jackson E; Oxenham, Andrew J

2017-01-01

A fundamental feature of everyday music perception is sensitivity to familiar tonal structures such as musical keys. Many studies have suggested that a tonal context can enhance the perception and representation of pitch. Most of these studies have measured response time, which may reflect expectancy as opposed to perceptual accuracy. We instead used a performance-based measure, comparing participants' ability to discriminate between a "small, in-tune" interval and a "large, mistuned" interval in conditions that involved familiar tonal relations (diatonic, or major, scale notes), unfamiliar tonal relations (whole-tone or mistuned-diatonic scale notes), repetition of a single pitch, or no tonal context. The context was established with a brief sequence of tones in Experiment 1 (melodic context), and a cadence-like two-chord progression in Experiment 2 (harmonic context). In both experiments, performance significantly differed across the context conditions, with a diatonic context providing a significant advantage over no context; however, no correlation with years of musical training was observed. The diatonic tonal context also provided an advantage over the whole-tone scale context condition in Experiment 1 (melodic context), and over the mistuned scale or repetition context conditions in Experiment 2 (harmonic context). However, the relatively small benefit to performance suggests that the main advantage of tonal context may be priming of expected stimuli, rather than enhanced accuracy of pitch interval representation.

How Does L1 and L2 Exposure Impact L1 Performance in Bilingual Children? Evidence from Polish-English Migrants to the United Kingdom

PubMed Central

Haman, Ewa; Wodniecka, Zofia; Marecka, Marta; Szewczyk, Jakub; Białecka-Pikul, Marta; Otwinowska, Agnieszka; Mieszkowska, Karolina; Łuniewska, Magdalena; Kołak, Joanna; Miękisz, Aneta; Kacprzak, Agnieszka; Banasik, Natalia; Foryś-Nogala, Małgorzata

2017-01-01

Most studies on bilingual language development focus on children’s second language (L2). Here, we investigated first language (L1) development of Polish-English early migrant bilinguals in four domains: vocabulary, grammar, phonological processing, and discourse. We first compared Polish language skills between bilinguals and their Polish non-migrant monolingual peers, and then investigated the influence of the cumulative exposure to L1 and L2 on bilinguals’ performance. We then examined whether high exposure to L1 could possibly minimize the gap between monolinguals and bilinguals. We analyzed data from 233 typically developing children (88 bilingual and 145 monolingual) aged 4;0 to 7;5 (years;months) on six language measures in Polish: receptive vocabulary, productive vocabulary, receptive grammar, productive grammar (sentence repetition), phonological processing (non-word repetition), and discourse abilities (narration). Information about language exposure was obtained via parental questionnaires. For each language task, we analyzed the data from the subsample of bilinguals who had completed all the tasks in question and from monolinguals matched one-on-one to the bilingual group on age, SES (measured by years of mother’s education), gender, non-verbal IQ, and short-term memory. The bilingual children scored lower than monolinguals in all language domains, except discourse. The group differences were more pronounced on the productive tasks (vocabulary, grammar, and phonological processing) and moderate on the receptive tasks (vocabulary and grammar). L1 exposure correlated positively with the vocabulary size and phonological processing. Grammar scores were not related to the levels of L1 exposure, but were predicted by general cognitive abilities. L2 exposure negatively influenced productive grammar in L1, suggesting possible L2 transfer effects on L1 grammatical performance. Children’s narrative skills benefitted from exposure to two languages: both L1 and L2 exposure influenced story structure scores in L1. Importantly, we did not find any evidence (in any of the tasks in which the gap was present) that the performance gap between monolinguals and bilinguals could be fully closed with high amounts of L1 input. PMID:28928681

Word and Pseudoword Superiority Effects: Evidence From a Shallow Orthography Language.

PubMed

Ripamonti, Enrico; Luzzatti, Claudio; Zoccolotti, Pierluigi; Traficante, Daniela

2017-08-03

The Word Superiority Effect (WSE) denotes better recognition of a letter embedded in a word rather than in a pseudoword. Along with WSE, also a Pseudoword Superiority Effect (PSE) has been described: it is easier to recognize a letter in a legal pseudoword than in an unpronounceable nonword. At the current state of the art, both WSE and PSE have been mainly tested with English speakers. The present study uses the Reicher-Wheeler paradigm with native speakers of Italian (a shallow orthography language). Differently from English and French, we found WSE for RTs only, whereas PSE was significant for both accuracy and reaction times (RTs). This finding indicates that, in the Reicher-Wheeler task, readers of a shallow orthography language can effectively rely on both the lexical and the sublexical routes. As to the effect of letter position, a clear advantage for the first letter position emerged, a finding suggesting a fine-grained processing of the letter strings with coding of letter position, and indicating the role of visual acuity and crowding factors.

Are There Separate Neural Systems for Spelling? New Insights into the Role of Rules and Memory in Spelling from Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

PubMed

Norton, Elizabeth S; Kovelman, Ioulia; Petitto, Laura-Ann

2007-03-01

How do people spell the thousands of words at the tips of their tongues? Are words with regular sound-to-letter correspondences (e.g., "blink") spelled using the same neural systems as those with irregular correspondences (e.g., "yacht")? By offering novel neuroimaging evidence, we aim to advance contemporary debate about whether people use a single lexical memory process or whether dual mechanisms of lexical memory and sublexical phonological rules work in concert. We further aim to advance understanding of how people read by taking a fresh look at the related yet distinct capacity to spell. During functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning, 12 participants heard low-frequency regular words, irregular words, and nonwords (e.g., "shelm") and responded whether a visual presentation of the word was spelled correctly or incorrectly. While behavioral measures suggested some differences in accuracy and reaction time for the different word types, the neuroimaging results alone demonstrated robust differential processing and support a dual-route model of spelling, with implications for how spelling is taught and remediated in clinical and educational contexts.

Word Skipping During Sentence Reading: Effects of Lexicality on Parafoveal Processing

PubMed Central

Choi, Wonil; Gordon, Peter C.

2013-01-01

Two experiments examined how lexical status affects the targeting of saccades during reading by using the boundary technique to vary independently the content of a letter string when seen in parafoveal preview and when directly fixated. Experiment 1 measured the skipping rate for a target word embedded in a sentence under three parafoveal preview conditions: full preview (e.g. brain-brain), pseudohomophone preview (e.g. brane-brain), and orthographic nonword control preview (e.g. brant-brain); in the first condition the preview string was always an English word while in the second and third conditions it was always a nonword. Experiment 2 investigated three conditions where the preview string was always a word: full preview (e.g. beach-beach), homophone preview (e.g. beech-beach), and orthographic control preview (e.g. bench-beach). None of the letter string manipulations used to create the preview conditions in the experiments disrupted sub-lexical orthographic or phonological patterns. In Experiment 1 higher skipping rates were observed for the full (lexical) preview condition, which consisted of a word, compared to the nonword preview conditions (pseudohomophone and orthographic-control). In contrast Experiment 2 showed no difference in skipping rates across the three types of lexical preview conditions (full, homophone and orthographic control), though preview type did influence reading times. This pattern indicates that skipping depends not only on the presence of disrupted sub-lexical patterns of orthography or phonology but is also critically dependent on processes that are sensitive to the lexical status of letter strings in the parafovea. PMID:24170376

Direct and octave-shifted pitch matching during nonword imitations in men, women, and children

PubMed Central

Peter, Beate; Foster, Bronsyn; Haas, Heather; Middleton, Kyle; McKibben, Kiersten

2014-01-01

Summary Objectives To evaluate whether children, women, and men match the speaker’s fundamental frequency (F0) during nonword imitation directly when the target F0 is within the responders’ vocal ranges and at octave-shifted levels when the target is outside their vocal ranges. To evaluate the role of a history of speech sound disorder (SSD) in the adult participants. Study Design Observational. Methods Nonword sets spoken by a man and a woman were imitated by 14 men, 21 women, and 19 children. Approximately half of the adults and two thirds of the children had a history of SSD. F0 in the imitations was compared to that in the targets and in the participants’ non-imitated control word productions. Results When the target F0 was within the responders’ vocal ranges, the imitations approximated the target F0. Men imitating a woman’s voice approximated F0 levels one octave below the target F0. Children imitating a man’s voice approximated F0 levels one octave above the target F0. Women imitating a man’s voice approximated the target F0 at a ratio of 1.5, known as the perfect fifth in music. A history of SSD did not influence the results. Conclusions This study replicates previous findings showing that target F0 was a salient aspect of the stimuli that was imitated along with the targets’ segmental and prosodic components without explicit prompting. It is the first to show F0 convergence not only directly but also at relevant target/imitation intervals including the octave interval. PMID:25439509

Preposition Accuracy on a Sentence Repetition Task in School Age Spanish-English Bilinguals

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Taliancich-Klinger, Casey L.; Bedore, Lisa M.; Pena, Elizabeth D.

2018-01-01

Preposition knowledge is important for academic success. The goal of this project was to examine how different variables such as English input and output, Spanish preposition score, mother education level, and age of English exposure (AoEE) may have played a role in children's preposition knowledge in English. 148 Spanish-English children between…

Sound to Language: Different Cortical Processing for First and Second Languages in Elementary School Children as Revealed by a Large-Scale Study Using fNIRS

PubMed Central

Ojima, Shiro; Matsuba-Kurita, Hiroko; Dan, Ippeita; Tsuzuki, Daisuke; Katura, Takusige; Hagiwara, Hiroko

2011-01-01

A large-scale study of 484 elementary school children (6–10 years) performing word repetition tasks in their native language (L1-Japanese) and a second language (L2-English) was conducted using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Three factors presumably associated with cortical activation, language (L1/L2), word frequency (high/low), and hemisphere (left/right), were investigated. L1 words elicited significantly greater brain activation than L2 words, regardless of semantic knowledge, particularly in the superior/middle temporal and inferior parietal regions (angular/supramarginal gyri). The greater L1-elicited activation in these regions suggests that they are phonological loci, reflecting processes tuned to the phonology of the native language, while phonologically unfamiliar L2 words were processed like nonword auditory stimuli. The activation was bilateral in the auditory and superior/middle temporal regions. Hemispheric asymmetry was observed in the inferior frontal region (right dominant), and in the inferior parietal region with interactions: low-frequency words elicited more right-hemispheric activation (particularly in the supramarginal gyrus), while high-frequency words elicited more left-hemispheric activation (particularly in the angular gyrus). The present results reveal the strong involvement of a bilateral language network in children’s brains depending more on right-hemispheric processing while acquiring unfamiliar/low-frequency words. A right-to-left shift in laterality should occur in the inferior parietal region, as lexical knowledge increases irrespective of language. PMID:21350046

Sound to language: different cortical processing for first and second languages in elementary school children as revealed by a large-scale study using fNIRS.

PubMed

Sugiura, Lisa; Ojima, Shiro; Matsuba-Kurita, Hiroko; Dan, Ippeita; Tsuzuki, Daisuke; Katura, Takusige; Hagiwara, Hiroko

2011-10-01

A large-scale study of 484 elementary school children (6-10 years) performing word repetition tasks in their native language (L1-Japanese) and a second language (L2-English) was conducted using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Three factors presumably associated with cortical activation, language (L1/L2), word frequency (high/low), and hemisphere (left/right), were investigated. L1 words elicited significantly greater brain activation than L2 words, regardless of semantic knowledge, particularly in the superior/middle temporal and inferior parietal regions (angular/supramarginal gyri). The greater L1-elicited activation in these regions suggests that they are phonological loci, reflecting processes tuned to the phonology of the native language, while phonologically unfamiliar L2 words were processed like nonword auditory stimuli. The activation was bilateral in the auditory and superior/middle temporal regions. Hemispheric asymmetry was observed in the inferior frontal region (right dominant), and in the inferior parietal region with interactions: low-frequency words elicited more right-hemispheric activation (particularly in the supramarginal gyrus), while high-frequency words elicited more left-hemispheric activation (particularly in the angular gyrus). The present results reveal the strong involvement of a bilateral language network in children's brains depending more on right-hemispheric processing while acquiring unfamiliar/low-frequency words. A right-to-left shift in laterality should occur in the inferior parietal region, as lexical knowledge increases irrespective of language.

Relation between Working Memory Capacity and Auditory Stream Segregation in Children with Auditory Processing Disorder

PubMed Central

Lotfi, Yones; Mehrkian, Saiedeh; Moossavi, Abdollah; Zadeh, Soghrat Faghih; Sadjedi, Hamed

2016-01-01

Background: This study assessed the relationship between working memory capacity and auditory stream segregation by using the concurrent minimum audible angle in children with a diagnosed auditory processing disorder (APD). Methods: The participants in this cross-sectional, comparative study were 20 typically developing children and 15 children with a diagnosed APD (age, 9–11 years) according to the subtests of multiple-processing auditory assessment. Auditory stream segregation was investigated using the concurrent minimum audible angle. Working memory capacity was evaluated using the non-word repetition and forward and backward digit span tasks. Nonparametric statistics were utilized to compare the between-group differences. The Pearson correlation was employed to measure the degree of association between working memory capacity and the localization tests between the 2 groups. Results: The group with APD had significantly lower scores than did the typically developing subjects in auditory stream segregation and working memory capacity. There were significant negative correlations between working memory capacity and the concurrent minimum audible angle in the most frontal reference location (0° azimuth) and lower negative correlations in the most lateral reference location (60° azimuth) in the children with APD. Conclusion: The study revealed a relationship between working memory capacity and auditory stream segregation in children with APD. The research suggests that lower working memory capacity in children with APD may be the possible cause of the inability to segregate and group incoming information. PMID:26989281

High-accuracy reference standards for two-photon absorption in the 680–1050 nm wavelength range

PubMed Central

de Reguardati, Sophie; Pahapill, Juri; Mikhailov, Alexander; Stepanenko, Yuriy; Rebane, Aleksander

2016-01-01

Degenerate two-photon absorption (2PA) of a series of organic fluorophores is measured using femtosecond fluorescence excitation method in the wavelength range, λ2PA = 680–1050 nm, and ~100 MHz pulse repetition rate. The function of relative 2PA spectral shape is obtained with estimated accuracy 5%, and the absolute 2PA cross section is measured at selected wavelengths with the accuracy 8%. Significant improvement of the accuracy is achieved by means of rigorous evaluation of the quadratic dependence of the fluorescence signal on the incident photon flux in the whole wavelength range, by comparing results obtained from two independent experiments, as well as due to meticulous evaluation of critical experimental parameters, including the excitation spatial- and temporal pulse shape, laser power and sample geometry. Application of the reference standards in nonlinear transmittance measurements is discussed. PMID:27137334

Accuracy of Kindergarten Teachers' Predictions of Their Pupils' Subsequent Performance. Research Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Virgin, Albert E.; Shecter, H. E.

This study is part of a series of three studies related to the incidence and effects of grade repetition on elementary school children. The focus of this study was to determine whether kindergarten teachers are able to make accurate predictions about their pupils' general academic and reading achievement when they reach Grade 3. In the 1970/71…

Phonological Development in Hearing Learners of a Sign Language: The Influence of Phonological Parameters, Sign Complexity, and Iconicity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ortega, Gerardo; Morgan, Gary

2015-01-01

The present study implemented a sign-repetition task at two points in time to hearing adult learners of British Sign Language and explored how each phonological parameter, sign complexity, and iconicity affected sign production over an 11-week (22-hour) instructional period. The results show that training improves articulation accuracy and that…

Repeating a Monologue under Increasing Time Pressure: Effects on Fluency, Complexity, and Accuracy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thai, Chau; Boers, Frank

2016-01-01

Studies have shown that learners' task performance improves when they have the opportunity to repeat the task. Conditions for task repetition vary, however. In the 4/3/2 activity, learners repeat a monologue under increasing time pressure. The purpose is to foster fluency, but it has been suggested in the literature that it also benefits other…

Second Language Word Learning through Repetition and Imitation: Functional Networks as a Function of Learning Phase and Language Distance.

PubMed

Ghazi-Saidi, Ladan; Ansaldo, Ana Ines

2017-01-01

Introduction and Aim : Repetition and imitation are among the oldest second language (L2) teaching approaches and are frequently used in the context of L2 learning and language therapy, despite some heavy criticism. Current neuroimaging techniques allow the neural mechanisms underlying repetition and imitation to be examined. This fMRI study examines the influence of verbal repetition and imitation on network configuration. Integration changes within and between the cognitive control and language networks were studied, in a pair of linguistically close languages (Spanish and French), and compared to our previous work on a distant language pair (Ghazi-Saidi et al., 2013). Methods : Twelve healthy native Spanish-speaking (L1) adults, and 12 healthy native Persian-speaking adults learned 130 new French (L2) words, through a computerized audiovisual repetition and imitation program. The program presented colored photos of objects. Participants were instructed to look at each photo and pronounce its name as closely as possible to the native template (imitate). Repetition was encouraged as many times as necessary to learn the object's name; phonological cues were provided if necessary. Participants practiced for 15 min, over 30 days, and were tested while naming the same items during fMRI scanning, at week 1 (shallow learning phase) and week 4 (consolidation phase) of training. To compare this set of data with our previous work on Persian speakers, a similar data analysis plan including accuracy rates (AR), response times (RT), and functional integration values for the language and cognitive control network at each measure point was included, with further L1-L2 direct comparisons across the two populations. Results and Discussion : The evidence shows that learning L2 words through repetition induces neuroplasticity at the network level. Specifically, L2 word learners showed increased network integration after 3 weeks of training, with both close and distant language pairs. Moreover, higher network integration was observed in the learners with the close language pair, suggesting that repetition effects on network configuration vary as a function of task complexity.

Integration deficiencies associated with continuous limb movement sequences in Parkinson's disease.

PubMed

Park, Jin-Hoon; Stelmach, George E

2009-11-01

The present study examined the extent to which Parkinson's disease (PD) influences integration of continuous limb movement sequences. Eight patients with idiopathic PD and 8 age-matched normal subjects were instructed to perform repetitive sequential aiming movements to specified targets under three-accuracy constraints: 1) low accuracy (W = 7 cm) - minimal accuracy constraint, 2) high accuracy (W = 0.64 cm) - maximum accuracy constraint, and 3) mixed accuracy constraint - one target of high accuracy and another target of low accuracy. The characteristic of sequential movements in the low accuracy condition was mostly cyclical, whereas in the high accuracy condition it was discrete in both groups. When the accuracy constraint was mixed, the sequential movements were executed by assembling discrete and cyclical movements in both groups, suggesting that for PD patients the capability to combine discrete and cyclical movements to meet a task requirement appears to be intact. However, such functional linkage was not as pronounced as was in normal subjects. Close examination of movement from the mixed accuracy condition revealed marked movement hesitations in the vicinity of the large target in PD patients, resulting in a bias toward discrete movement. These results suggest that PD patients may have deficits in ongoing planning and organizing processes during movement execution when the tasks require to assemble various accuracy requirements into more complex movement sequences.

Face matching in a long task: enforced rest and desk-switching cannot maintain identification accuracy

PubMed Central

Alenezi, Hamood M.; Fysh, Matthew C.; Johnston, Robert A.

2015-01-01

In face matching, observers have to decide whether two photographs depict the same person or different people. This task is not only remarkably difficult but accuracy declines further during prolonged testing. The current study investigated whether this decline in long tasks can be eliminated with regular rest-breaks (Experiment 1) or room-switching (Experiment 2). Both experiments replicated the accuracy decline for long face-matching tasks and showed that this could not be eliminated with rest or room-switching. These findings suggest that person identification in applied settings, such as passport control, might be particularly error-prone due to the long and repetitive nature of the task. The experiments also show that it is difficult to counteract these problems. PMID:26312179

When Sandpaper Is 'Kiki' and Satin Is 'Bouba': an Exploration of the Associations Between Words, Emotional States, and the Tactile Attributes of Everyday Materials.

PubMed

Etzi, Roberta; Spence, Charles; Zampini, Massimiliano; Gallace, Alberto

2016-01-01

Over the last decade, scientists working on the topic of multisensory integration, as well as designers and marketers involved in trying to understand consumer behavior, have become increasingly interested in the non-arbitrary associations (e.g., sound symbolism) between different sensorial attributes of the stimuli they work with. Nevertheless, to date, little research in this area has investigated the presence of these crossmodal correspondences in the tactile evaluation of everyday materials. Here, we explore the presence and nature of the associations between tactile sensations, the sound of non-words, and people's emotional states. Samples of cotton, satin, tinfoil, sandpaper, and abrasive sponge, were stroked along the participants' forearm at the speed of 5 cm/s. Participants evaluated the materials along several dimensions, comprising scales anchored by pairs of non-words (e.g., Kiki/Bouba) and adjectives (e.g., ugly/beautiful). The results revealed that smoother textures were associated with non-words made up of round-shaped sounds (e.g., Maluma), whereas rougher textures were more strongly associated with sharp-transient sounds (e.g., Takete). The results also revealed the presence of a number of correspondences between tactile surfaces and adjectives related to visual and auditory attributes. For example, smooth textures were associated with features evoked by words such as 'bright' and 'quiet'; by contrast, the rougher textures were associated with adjectives such as 'dim' and 'loud'. The textures were also found to be associated with a number of emotional labels. Taken together, these results further our understanding of crossmodal correspondences involving the tactile modality and provide interesting insights in the applied field of design and marketing.

Pathways of the inferior frontal occipital fasciculus in overt speech and reading.

PubMed

Rollans, Claire; Cheema, Kulpreet; Georgiou, George K; Cummine, Jacqueline

2017-11-19

In this study, we examined the relationship between tractography-based measures of white matter integrity (ex. fractional anisotropy [FA]) from diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and five reading-related tasks, including rapid automatized naming (RAN) of letters, digits, and objects, and reading of real words and nonwords. Twenty university students with no reported history of reading difficulties were tested on all five tasks and their performance was correlated with diffusion measures extracted through DTI tractography. A secondary analysis using whole-brain Tract-Based Spatial Statistics (TBSS) was also used to find clusters showing significant negative correlations between reaction time and FA. Results showed a significant relationship between the left inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus FA and performance on the RAN of objects task, as well as a strong relationship to nonword reading, which suggests a role for this tract in slower, non-automatic and/or resource-demanding speech tasks. There were no significant relationships between FA and the faster, more automatic speech tasks (RAN of letters and digits, and real word reading). These findings provide evidence for the role of the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus in tasks that are highly demanding of orthography-phonology translation (e.g., nonword reading) and semantic processing (e.g., RAN object). This demonstrates the importance of the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus in basic naming and suggests that this tract may be a sensitive predictor of rapid naming performance within the typical population. We discuss the findings in the context of current models of reading and speech production to further characterize the white matter pathways associated with basic reading processes. Copyright © 2017 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Effects of task structure on category priming in patients with Parkinson's disease and in healthy individuals.

PubMed

Brown, Gregory G; Brown, Sandra J; Christenson, Gina; Williams, Rebecca E; Kindermann, Sandra S; Loftis, Christopher; Olsen, Ryan; Siple, Patricia; Shults, Clifford; Gorell, Jay M

2002-05-01

Lexical decision tasks have been used to study both shifts of attention and semantic processing in Parkinson's Disease (PD). Whereas other laboratories have reported normal levels of semantic priming among PD patients, our laboratory has reported abnormally large levels. In this study, two experiments were performed to determine the influence of task structure on the extent of semantic priming during lexical decision-making and pronunciation tasks among PD patients and neurologically healthy controls. In Experiment 1, the effect of Prime Dominance (the ratio of category to neutral trials) on lexical decision-making was studied. Although equal numbers of word and nonword trials were presented, half of the PD patients and controls were studied under Category Prime Dominance (category : neutral prime ratio of 2:1) and half were studied under Neutral Prime Dominance (category : neutral prime ratio of 1:2). In Experiment 2, PD and control participants were studied on lexical decision-making and pronunciation tasks where twice as many words as nonword trials were presented, consistent with other studies from our laboratory. In Experiment 1, we found no group differences in the magnitude of priming and no effect of Prime Dominance. Moreover, the findings were similar in pattern and magnitude to results published by Neely (1977). In Experiment 2, we observed larger priming effects among PD patients than among controls, but only on the lexical decision (LD) task. These results support the hypothesis that abnormally large category-priming effects appear in LD studies of PD patients when the number of word trials exceeds the number of nonword trials. Furthermore, increased lexical priming in PD appears to be due to processes operating during the decision-making period that follows presentation of the lexical target.

Stress and alcohol cues exert conjoint effects on go and stop signal responding in male problem drinkers.

PubMed

Zack, Martin; Woodford, Tracy M; Tremblay, Anne M; Steinberg, Lindsay; Zawertailo, Laurie A; Busto, Usoa E

2011-01-01

Stress, cues, and pharmacological priming are linked with relapse to addictive behavior. Increased salience and decreased inhibitory control are thought to mediate the effects of relapse-related stimuli. However, the functional relationship between these two processes is unclear. To address this issue, a modified Stop Signal Task was employed, which used Alcohol, Neutral, and Non-Words as Go stimuli, and lexical decision as the Go response. Subjects were 38 male problem drinkers (mean Alcohol Dependence Scale (ADS) score: 18.0). Uncontrollable noise (∼ 10 min at 110 dB) was the stressor; nonalcoholic placebo beer (P-Beer) was the cue manipulation, and alcohol (0.7 g/kg), the pharmacological prime. Half the sample received alcohol, and half P-Beer. Stress and beverage (test drink vs soft drink) were manipulated within subjects on two sessions, with half the sample receiving active manipulations together and half receiving them separately. Go response time (RT) and Stop Signal RT (SSRT) were slower to Alcohol than Neutral words. Stress augmented this bias. Alcohol and P-Beer impaired overall SSRT. Stress impaired neither overall SSRT nor Go RT. SSRT to Neutral words and Non-Words correlated inversely with Go RT to Alcohol and Neutral words, and Non-Words. ADS correlated directly with SSRT to Alcohol words. A resource allocation account was proposed, whereby diversion of limited resources to salient cues effectively yoked otherwise independent Go and Stop processes. Disturbances of prefrontal norepinephrine and dopamine were cited as possibly accounting for these effects. Treatments that optimize prefrontal catecholamine transmission may deter relapse by reducing disinhibitory effects of salient eliciting stimuli.

Stress and Alcohol Cues Exert Conjoint Effects on Go and Stop Signal Responding in Male Problem Drinkers

PubMed Central

Zack, Martin; Woodford, Tracy M; Tremblay, Anne M; Steinberg, Lindsay; Zawertailo, Laurie A; Busto, Usoa E

2011-01-01

Stress, cues, and pharmacological priming are linked with relapse to addictive behavior. Increased salience and decreased inhibitory control are thought to mediate the effects of relapse-related stimuli. However, the functional relationship between these two processes is unclear. To address this issue, a modified Stop Signal Task was employed, which used Alcohol, Neutral, and Non-Words as Go stimuli, and lexical decision as the Go response. Subjects were 38 male problem drinkers (mean Alcohol Dependence Scale (ADS) score: 18.0). Uncontrollable noise (∼10 min at 110 dB) was the stressor; nonalcoholic placebo beer (P-Beer) was the cue manipulation, and alcohol (0.7 g/kg), the pharmacological prime. Half the sample received alcohol, and half P-Beer. Stress and beverage (test drink vs soft drink) were manipulated within subjects on two sessions, with half the sample receiving active manipulations together and half receiving them separately. Go response time (RT) and Stop Signal RT (SSRT) were slower to Alcohol than Neutral words. Stress augmented this bias. Alcohol and P-Beer impaired overall SSRT. Stress impaired neither overall SSRT nor Go RT. SSRT to Neutral words and Non-Words correlated inversely with Go RT to Alcohol and Neutral words, and Non-Words. ADS correlated directly with SSRT to Alcohol words. A resource allocation account was proposed, whereby diversion of limited resources to salient cues effectively yoked otherwise independent Go and Stop processes. Disturbances of prefrontal norepinephrine and dopamine were cited as possibly accounting for these effects. Treatments that optimize prefrontal catecholamine transmission may deter relapse by reducing disinhibitory effects of salient eliciting stimuli. PMID:20927046

Can a surgeon drill accurately at a specified angle?

PubMed Central

Brioschi, Valentina; Cook, Jodie; Arthurs, Gareth I

2016-01-01

Objectives To investigate whether a surgeon can drill accurately a specified angle and whether surgeon experience, task repetition, drill bit size and perceived difficulty influence drilling angle accuracy. Methods The sample population consisted of final-year students (n=25), non-specialist veterinarians (n=22) and board-certified orthopaedic surgeons (n=8). Each participant drilled a hole twice in a horizontal oak plank at 30°, 45°, 60°, 80°, 85° and 90° angles with either a 2.5  or a 3.5 mm drill bit. Participants then rated the perceived difficulty to drill each angle. The true angle of each hole was measured using a digital goniometer. Results Greater drilling accuracy was achieved at angles closer to 90°. An error of ≤±4° was achieved by 84.5 per cent of participants drilling a 90° angle compared with approximately 20 per cent of participants drilling a 30–45° angle. There was no effect of surgeon experience, task repetition or drill bit size on the mean error for intended versus achieved angle. Increased perception of difficulty was associated with the more acute angles and decreased accuracy, but not experience level. Clinical significance This study shows that surgeon ability to drill accurately (within ±4° error) is limited, particularly at angles ≤60°. In situations where drill angle is critical, use of computer-assisted navigation or custom-made drill guides may be preferable. PMID:27547423

Speech processing and production in two-year-old children acquiring isiXhosa: A tale of two children

PubMed Central

Rossouw, Kate; Fish, Laura; Jansen, Charne; Manley, Natalie; Powell, Michelle; Rosen, Loren

2016-01-01

We investigated the speech processing and production of 2-year-old children acquiring isiXhosa in South Africa. Two children (2 years, 5 months; 2 years, 8 months) are presented as single cases. Speech input processing, stored phonological knowledge and speech output are described, based on data from auditory discrimination, naming, and repetition tasks. Both children were approximating adult levels of accuracy in their speech output, although naming was constrained by vocabulary. Performance across tasks was variable: One child showed a relative strength with repetition, and experienced most difficulties with auditory discrimination. The other performed equally well in naming and repetition, and obtained 100% for her auditory task. There is limited data regarding typical development of isiXhosa, and the focus has mainly been on speech production. This exploratory study describes typical development of isiXhosa using a variety of tasks understood within a psycholinguistic framework. We describe some ways in which speech and language therapists can devise and carry out assessment with children in situations where few formal assessments exist, and also detail the challenges of such work. PMID:27245131

Status Report on Speech Research, 1 January-31 March 1982.

DTIC Science & Technology

1982-03-01

PUMPKIN RHYTHM Nonwords SUBMARINE CONKZMER SURGERY ENGKSTERN THIRD FTERNAPS TOMATO HSPERACH UMBRELLA PGANTERLH VEHICLE PIOTLANING VIDEO PUANT VINEGAR ...and productionI (TABLE 6) data for Catalan subjects with special reference to ferment transions.Ordlnate: F2 ranges (in Hz)abaolsea: PS ranges (in

Deep Learning of Orthographic Representations in Baboons

PubMed Central

Hannagan, Thomas; Ziegler, Johannes C.; Dufau, Stéphane; Fagot, Joël; Grainger, Jonathan

2014-01-01

What is the origin of our ability to learn orthographic knowledge? We use deep convolutional networks to emulate the primate's ventral visual stream and explore the recent finding that baboons can be trained to discriminate English words from nonwords [1]. The networks were exposed to the exact same sequence of stimuli and reinforcement signals as the baboons in the experiment, and learned to map real visual inputs (pixels) of letter strings onto binary word/nonword responses. We show that the networks' highest levels of representations were indeed sensitive to letter combinations as postulated in our previous research. The model also captured the key empirical findings, such as generalization to novel words, along with some intriguing inter-individual differences. The present work shows the merits of deep learning networks that can simulate the whole processing chain all the way from the visual input to the response while allowing researchers to analyze the complex representations that emerge during the learning process. PMID:24416300

A causal test of the motor theory of speech perception: a case of impaired speech production and spared speech perception.

PubMed

Stasenko, Alena; Bonn, Cory; Teghipco, Alex; Garcea, Frank E; Sweet, Catherine; Dombovy, Mary; McDonough, Joyce; Mahon, Bradford Z

2015-01-01

The debate about the causal role of the motor system in speech perception has been reignited by demonstrations that motor processes are engaged during the processing of speech sounds. Here, we evaluate which aspects of auditory speech processing are affected, and which are not, in a stroke patient with dysfunction of the speech motor system. We found that the patient showed a normal phonemic categorical boundary when discriminating two non-words that differ by a minimal pair (e.g., ADA-AGA). However, using the same stimuli, the patient was unable to identify or label the non-word stimuli (using a button-press response). A control task showed that he could identify speech sounds by speaker gender, ruling out a general labelling impairment. These data suggest that while the motor system is not causally involved in perception of the speech signal, it may be used when other cues (e.g., meaning, context) are not available.

Postaccess processes in the open vs. closed class distinction.

PubMed

Matthei, E H; Kean, M L

1989-02-01

We present the results of two auditory lexical decision experiments in which we attempted to replicate findings originally presented in Bradley (1978, Computational distinctions of vocabulary type, Ph.D. dissertation, MIT). The results obtained by Bradley were used as evidence for a processing distinction between the open and the closed class vocabularies; this distinction then used as part of an explanation for agrammatism in the comprehension and production of Broca's aphasics. In our first experiment we failed to replicate Bradley's result of frequency insensitivity in the closed class. Our second experiment, however, replicates Bradley's finding that closed class based nonwords (e.g., thanage) fail to induce interference effects in nonword decisions. We argue that our results, together with the various other reported failures to replicate Bradley's frequency insensitivity result, indicate that the open and closed classes may play distinct roles in postaccess phenomena involving the processing of morphological information but that such studies cannot address the question of whether the open vs. closed class distinction plays a role in syntactic processing.

Reading "sun" and looking up: the influence of language on saccadic eye movements in the vertical dimension.

PubMed

Dudschig, Carolin; Souman, Jan; Lachmair, Martin; de la Vega, Irmgard; Kaup, Barbara

2013-01-01

Traditionally, language processing has been attributed to a separate system in the brain, which supposedly works in an abstract propositional manner. However, there is increasing evidence suggesting that language processing is strongly interrelated with sensorimotor processing. Evidence for such an interrelation is typically drawn from interactions between language and perception or action. In the current study, the effect of words that refer to entities in the world with a typical location (e.g., sun, worm) on the planning of saccadic eye movements was investigated. Participants had to perform a lexical decision task on visually presented words and non-words. They responded by moving their eyes to a target in an upper (lower) screen position for a word (non-word) or vice versa. Eye movements were faster to locations compatible with the word's referent in the real world. These results provide evidence for the importance of linguistic stimuli in directing eye movements, even if the words do not directly transfer directional information.

[The role of external letter positions in visual word recognition].

PubMed

Perea, Manuel; Lupker, Sthephen J

2007-11-01

A key issue for any computational model of visual word recognition is the choice of an input coding schema, which is responsible for assigning letter positions. Such a schema must reflect the fact that, according to recent research, nonwords created by transposing letters (e.g., caniso for CASINO ), typically, appear to be more similar to the word than nonwords created by replacing letters (e.g., caviro ). In the present research, we initially carried out a computational analysis examining the degree to which the position of the transposition influences transposed-letter similarity effects. We next conducted a masked priming experiment with the lexical decision task to determine whether a transposed-letter priming advantage occurs when the first letter position is involved. Primes were created by either transposing the first and third letters (démula-MEDULA ) or replacing the first and third letters (bérula-MEDULA). Results showed that there was no transposed-letter priming advantage in this situation. We discuss the implications of these results for models of visual word recognition.

Lexical mediation of phonotactic frequency effects on spoken word recognition: A Granger causality analysis of MRI-constrained MEG/EEG data.

PubMed

Gow, David W; Olson, Bruna B

2015-07-01

Phonotactic frequency effects play a crucial role in a number of debates over language processing and representation. It is unclear however, whether these effects reflect prelexical sensitivity to phonotactic frequency, or lexical "gang effects" in speech perception. In this paper, we use Granger causality analysis of MR-constrained MEG/EEG data to understand how phonotactic frequency influences neural processing dynamics during auditory lexical decision. Effective connectivity analysis showed weaker feedforward influence from brain regions involved in acoustic-phonetic processing (superior temporal gyrus) to lexical areas (supramarginal gyrus) for high phonotactic frequency words, but stronger top-down lexical influence for the same items. Low entropy nonwords (nonwords judged to closely resemble real words) showed a similar pattern of interactions between brain regions involved in lexical and acoustic-phonetic processing. These results contradict the predictions of a feedforward model of phonotactic frequency facilitation, but support the predictions of a lexically mediated account.

Lexical mediation of phonotactic frequency effects on spoken word recognition: A Granger causality analysis of MRI-constrained MEG/EEG data

PubMed Central

Gow, David W.; Olson, Bruna B.

2015-01-01

Phonotactic frequency effects play a crucial role in a number of debates over language processing and representation. It is unclear however, whether these effects reflect prelexical sensitivity to phonotactic frequency, or lexical “gang effects” in speech perception. In this paper, we use Granger causality analysis of MR-constrained MEG/EEG data to understand how phonotactic frequency influences neural processing dynamics during auditory lexical decision. Effective connectivity analysis showed weaker feedforward influence from brain regions involved in acoustic-phonetic processing (superior temporal gyrus) to lexical areas (supramarginal gyrus) for high phonotactic frequency words, but stronger top-down lexical influence for the same items. Low entropy nonwords (nonwords judged to closely resemble real words) showed a similar pattern of interactions between brain regions involved in lexical and acoustic-phonetic processing. These results contradict the predictions of a feedforward model of phonotactic frequency facilitation, but support the predictions of a lexically mediated account. PMID:25883413

Wind velocity measurement accuracy with highly stable 12 mJ/pulse high repetition rate CO2 laser master oscillator power amplifier

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bilbro, James W.; Johnson, Steven C.; Rothermel, Jeffry

1987-01-01

A coherent CO2 lidar operating in a master oscillator power amplifier configuration (MOPA) is described for both ground-based and airborne operation. Representative data taken from measurements against stationary targets in both the ground-based and airborne configurations are shown for the evaluation of the frequency stability of the system. Examples of data are also given which show the results of anomalous system operation. Overall results demonstrate that velocity measurements can be performed consistently to an accuracy of + or - 0.5 m/s and in some cases + or - 0.1 m/s.

A laser measurement system with multi-degree-of-freedom

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Long, Lingli; Yang, Liangen; Wang, Xuanze; Zhai, Zhongsheng

2008-10-01

A new five-degree-of-freedom measuring system was developed as a linear guide. According to the principle of autocollimation, the system consisted of two semiconductor lasers, two right angle prisms, two lenses, two polarization spectroscopes and four quadrant Si-photoelectric detectors(QPD). Two axial displacements and three angular rotation degrees are measured by comparing the position of the spot center on the QPD. Repetitive simulations show that the accuracy of the system is 3" for measurement of angle, which proves the feasibility of this system. The advantages of the system include simple structure, easy operation, high accuracy, low cost and real-time work.

Application of the Repetitive Behavior Scale-Revised--Italian version--in preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder.

PubMed

Fulceri, Francesca; Narzisi, Antonio; Apicella, Fabio; Balboni, Giulia; Baldini, Sara; Brocchini, Jenny; Domenici, Ilaria; Cerullo, Sonia; Igliozzi, Roberta; Cosenza, Angela; Tancredi, Raffaella; Muratori, Filippo; Calderoni, Sara

2016-01-01

Restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activities (RRB) are mandatory features for a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of mental disorders-fifth edition (DSM-5). Despite the strong diagnostic role of RRB, their expressiveness and their relationship with other clinical/demographic features in ASD is not fully elucidated. The Italian version of the Repetitive Behavior Scale-Revised (RBS-R) was applied to a relatively large sample of preschool-aged children with ASD who underwent a comprehensive clinical assessment. The relationship between RRB and sex, age, non-verbal IQ, autism severity, as well as the diagnostic accuracy of the RBS-R were explored. Stereotyped and Ritualistic/Sameness behaviors were the most common RRB in preschoolers with ASD, without widespread differences between males and females. No significant correlations between RRB and chronological age, or non-verbal IQ were detected. The expressiveness of ritualistic/sameness behaviors positively correlated with autism severity, assessed through the Calibrated Severity Score (CSS) derived from the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS). Receiver Operator Characteristic (ROC) analysis showed high diagnostic accuracy using the Global Rating Score, which represents the judgment of the parents of as the RRB affect the child's life. However, while the Global Rating Score performed well, the remaining subscales did not. This investigation extends the limited research on early pattern and associated features of RRB in young children with ASD. The use of the RBS-R may increase the knowledge of the RRB complexity and variability and in turn improve the diagnostic and therapeutic procedures within the autistic spectrum. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

PPT Thrust Stand

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Haag, Thomas W.

1995-01-01

A torsional-type thrust stand has been designed and built to test Pulsed Plasma Thrusters (PPT's) in both single shot and repetitive operating modes. Using this stand, momentum per pulse was determined strictly as a function of thrust stand deflection, spring constant, and natural frequency. No empirical corrections were required. The accuracy of the method was verified using a swinging impact pendulum. Momentum transfer data between the thrust stand and the pendulum were consistent to within 1%. Following initial calibrations, the stand was used to test a Lincoln Experimental Satellite (LES-8/9) thruster. The LES-8/9 system had a mass of approximately 7.5 kg, with a nominal thrust to weight ratio of 1.3 x 10(exp -5). A total of 34 single shot thruster pulses were individually measured. The average impulse bit per pulse was 266 microN-s, which was slightly less than the value of 300 microN-s published in previous reports on this device. Repetitive pulse measurements were performed similar to ordinary steady-state thrust measurements. The thruster was operated for 30 minutes at a repetition rate of 132 pulses per minute and yielded an average thrust of 573 microN. Using average thrust, the average impulse bit per pulse was estimated to be 260 microN-s, which was in agreement with the single shot data. Zero drift during the repetitive pulse test was found to be approximately 1% of the measured thrust.

Verification of accurate technical insight: a prerequisite for self-directed surgical training.

PubMed

Hu, Yinin; Kim, Helen; Mahmutovic, Adela; Choi, Joanna; Le, Ivy; Rasmussen, Sara

2015-03-01

Simulation-based surgical skills training during preclinical education is a persistent challenge due to time constraints of trainees and instructors alike. Self-directed practice is resource-efficient and flexible; however, insight into technical proficiency among trainees is often lacking. The purpose of this study is to prospectively assess the accuracy of self-assessments among medical students learning basic surgical suturing. Over seven weekly practice sessions, preclinical medical students performed serial repetitions of a simulation-based suturing task under one-on-one observation by one of four trainers. Following each task repetition, self- and trainer-assessments (SA-TA) were performed using a 36-point weighted checklist of technical standards developed a priori by expert consensus. Upon study completion, agreement between SA and TA was measured using weighted Cohen's kappa coefficients. Twenty-nine medical students each performed a median of 25 suture task repetitions (IQR 21.5-28). Self-assessments tended to overestimate proficiency during the first tertile of practice attempts. Agreement between SA and TA improved with experience, such that the weighted kappa statistics for the two-handed and instrument ties were >0.81 after 18-21 task attempts. Inexperienced trainees frequently overestimate technical proficiency through self-assessments. However, this bias diminishes with repetitive practice. Only after trainees have attained the capacity to accurately self-assess can effective self-directed learning take place.

Retrieval from Memory: Vulnerable or Inviolable?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jones, Dylan M.; Marsh, John E.; Hughes, Robert W.

2012-01-01

We show that retrieval from semantic memory is vulnerable even to the mere presence of speech. Irrelevant speech impairs semantic fluency--namely, lexical retrieval cued by a semantic category name--but only if it is meaningful (forward speech compared to reversed speech or words compared to nonwords). Moreover, speech related semantically to the…

Morphophonemic Transfer in English Second Language Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ping, Sze Wei; Rickard Liow, Susan J.

2011-01-01

Malay (Rumi) is alphabetic and has a transparent, agglutinative system of affixation. We manipulated language-specific junctural phonetics in Malay and English to investigate whether morphophonemic L1-knowledge influences L2-processing. A morpheme decision task, "Does this "nonword" sound like a mono- or bi-morphemic English word?", was developed…

Lexical and Semantic Binding in Verbal Short-Term Memory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jefferies, Elizabeth; Frankish, Clive R.; Ralph, Matthew A. Lambon

2006-01-01

Semantic dementia patients make numerous phoneme migration errors in their immediate serial recall of poorly comprehended words. In this study, similar errors were induced in the word recall of healthy participants by presenting unpredictable mixed lists of words and nonwords. This technique revealed that lexicality, word frequency, imageability,…

Nonword Reading across Orthographies: How Flexible Is the Choice of Reading Units?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goswami, Usha; Ziegler, Johannes C.; Dalton, Louise; Schnieder, Wolfgang

2003-01-01

Used cross-language blocking experiments to test the hypothesis that children learning to read inconsistent orthographies would show considerable flexibility in making use of spelling-sound correspondences at different unit sizes, whereas children learning to read consistent orthographies should mainly employ small-size grapheme-phoneme…

Adult Word Recognition and Visual Sequential Memory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Holmes, V. M.

2012-01-01

Two experiments were conducted investigating the role of visual sequential memory skill in the word recognition efficiency of undergraduate university students. Word recognition was assessed in a lexical decision task using regularly and strangely spelt words, and nonwords that were either standard orthographically legal strings or items made from…

Language and Short-Term Memory: The Role of Perceptual-Motor Affordance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Macken, Bill; Taylor, John C.; Jones, Dylan M.

2014-01-01

The advantage for real words over nonwords in serial recall--the "lexicality effect"--is typically attributed to support for item-level phonology, either via redintegration, whereby partially degraded short-term traces are "cleaned up" via support from long-term representations of the phonological material or via the more…

Past-Tense Morphology and Phonological Deficits in Children with Dyslexia and Children with Language Impairment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Robertson, Erin K.; Joanisse, Marc F.; Desroches, Amy S.; Terry, Alexandra

2013-01-01

The authors investigated past-tense morphology problems in children with dyslexia compared to those classically observed in children with oral language impairment (LI). Children were tested on a past-tense elicitation task involving regulars ("look-looked"), irregulars ("take-took"), and nonwords ("murn-murned").…

Sound-Symbolism Boosts Novel Word Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lockwood, Gwilym; Dingemanse, Mark; Hagoort, Peter

2016-01-01

The existence of sound-symbolism (or a non-arbitrary link between form and meaning) is well-attested. However, sound-symbolism has mostly been investigated with nonwords in forced choice tasks, neither of which are representative of natural language. This study uses ideophones, which are naturally occurring sound-symbolic words that depict sensory…

The Role of Antibody in Korean Word Recognition

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Chang Hwan; Lee, Yoonhyoung; Kim, Kyungil

2010-01-01

A subsyllabic phonological unit, the antibody, has received little attention as a potential fundamental processing unit in word recognition. The psychological reality of the antibody in Korean recognition was investigated by looking at the performance of subjects presented with nonwords and words in the lexical decision task. In Experiment 1, the…

The Influence of Phonetic Dimensions on Aphasic Speech Perception

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hessler, Dorte; Jonkers, Roel; Bastiaanse, Roelien

2010-01-01

Individuals with aphasia have more problems detecting small differences between speech sounds than larger ones. This paper reports how phonemic processing is impaired and how this is influenced by speechreading. A non-word discrimination task was carried out with "audiovisual", "auditory only" and "visual only" stimulus display. Subjects had to…

Parafoveal Lexical Activation Depends on Skilled Reading Proficiency

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Veldre, Aaron; Andrews, Sally

2015-01-01

The boundary paradigm was used to investigate individual differences in the extraction of lexical information from the parafovea in sentence reading. The preview of a target word was manipulated so that it was identical (e.g., "sped"), a higher frequency orthographic neighbor ("seed"), a nonword neighbor ("sted"), or…

Basic Processes in Reading: The Effect of Interletter Spacing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Risko, Evan F.; Lanthier, Sophie N.; Besner, Derek

2011-01-01

Reading is acutely sensitive to the amount of space between letters within a string. In the present investigation, we explore the impairment caused by increasing interletter spacing when reading single words and nonwords aloud. Specifically, 2 hypotheses are tested: (a) whether increasing interletter spacing induces serial processing while reading…

Is Banara Really a Word?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Qiao, Xiaomei; Forster, Kenneth; Witzel, Naoko

2009-01-01

Bowers, Davis, and Hanley (Bowers, J. S., Davis, C. J., & Hanley, D. A. (2005). "Interfering neighbours: The impact of novel word learning on the identification of visually similar words." "Cognition," 97(3), B45-B54) reported that if participants were trained to type nonwords such as "banara", subsequent semantic categorization responses to…

Hemispheric Differences in Processing Handwritten Cursive

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hellige, Joseph B.; Adamson, Maheen M.

2007-01-01

Hemispheric asymmetry was examined for native English speakers identifying consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) non-words presented in standard printed form, in standard handwritten cursive form or in handwritten cursive with the letters separated by small gaps. For all three conditions, fewer errors occurred when stimuli were presented to the right…

Slipped Lips: Onset Asynchrony Detection of Auditory-Visual Language in Autism

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Grossman, Ruth B.; Schneps, Matthew H.; Tager-Flusberg, Helen

2009-01-01

Background: It has frequently been suggested that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have deficits in auditory-visual (AV) sensory integration. Studies of language integration have mostly used non-word syllables presented in congruent and incongruent AV combinations and demonstrated reduced influence of visual speech in individuals…

A locus for an auditory processing deficit and language impairment in an extended pedigree maps to 12p13.31-q14.3

PubMed Central

Addis, L; Friederici, A D; Kotz, S A; Sabisch, B; Barry, J; Richter, N; Ludwig, A A; Rübsamen, R; Albert, F W; Pääbo, S; Newbury, D F; Monaco, A P

2010-01-01

Despite the apparent robustness of language learning in humans, a large number of children still fail to develop appropriate language skills despite adequate means and opportunity. Most cases of language impairment have a complex etiology, with genetic and environmental influences. In contrast, we describe a three-generation German family who present with an apparently simple segregation of language impairment. Investigations of the family indicate auditory processing difficulties as a core deficit. Affected members performed poorly on a nonword repetition task and present with communication impairments. The brain activation pattern for syllable duration as measured by event-related brain potentials showed clear differences between affected family members and controls, with only affected members displaying a late discrimination negativity. In conjunction with psychoacoustic data showing deficiencies in auditory duration discrimination, the present results indicate increased processing demands in discriminating syllables of different duration. This, we argue, forms the cognitive basis of the observed language impairment in this family. Genome-wide linkage analysis showed a haplotype in the central region of chromosome 12 which reaches the maximum possible logarithm of odds ratio (LOD) score and fully co-segregates with the language impairment, consistent with an autosomal dominant, fully penetrant mode of inheritance. Whole genome analysis yielded no novel inherited copy number variants strengthening the case for a simple inheritance pattern. Several genes in this region of chromosome 12 which are potentially implicated in language impairment did not contain polymorphisms likely to be the causative mutation, which is as yet unknown. PMID:20345892

Language development in preschool children born after asymmetrical intrauterine growth retardation.

PubMed

Simić Klarić, Andrea; Kolundžić, Zdravko; Galić, Slavka; Mejaški Bošnjak, Vlatka

2012-03-01

After intrauterine growth retardation, many minor neurodevelopmental disorders may occur, especially in the motor skills domain, language and speech development, and cognitive functions. The assessment of language development and impact of postnatal head growth in preschool children born with asymmetrical intrauterine growth retardation. Examinees were born at term with birth weight below the 10th percentile for gestational age, parity and gender. Mean age at the time of study was six years and four months. The control group was matched according to chronological and gestational age, gender and maternal education with mean age six years and five months. There were 50 children with intrauterine growth retardation and 50 controls, 28 girls and 22 boys in each group. For the assessment of language development Reynell Developmental Language Scale, the Naming test and Mottier test were performed. There were statistically significant differences (p < 0.05) in language comprehension, total expressive language (vocabulary, structure, content), naming skills and non-words repetition. Statistically significant positive correlations were found between relative growth of the head [(Actual head circumference - head circumference at birth)/(Body weight - birth weight)] and language outcome. Children with neonatal complications had lower results (p < 0.05) in language comprehension and total expressive language. Intrauterine growth retardation has a negative impact on language development which is evident in preschool years. Slow postnatal head growth is correlated with poorer language outcome. Neonatal complications were negatively correlated with language comprehension and total expressive language. Copyright © 2011 European Paediatric Neurology Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Lexical representation of novel L2 contrasts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hayes-Harb, Rachel; Masuda, Kyoko

2005-04-01

There is much interest among psychologists and linguists in the influence of the native language sound system on the acquisition of second languages (Best, 1995; Flege, 1995). Most studies of second language (L2) speech focus on how learners perceive and produce L2 sounds, but we know of only two that have considered how novel sound contrasts are encoded in learners' lexical representations of L2 words (Pallier et al., 2001; Ota et al., 2002). In this study we investigated how native speakers of English encode Japanese consonant quantity contrasts in their developing Japanese lexicons at different stages of acquisition (Japanese contrasts singleton versus geminate consonants but English does not). Monolingual English speakers, native English speakers learning Japanese for one year, and native speakers of Japanese were taught a set of Japanese nonwords containing singleton and geminate consonants. Subjects then performed memory tasks eliciting perception and production data to determine whether they encoded the Japanese consonant quantity contrast lexically. Overall accuracy in these tasks was a function of Japanese language experience, and acoustic analysis of the production data revealed non-native-like patterns of differentiation of singleton and geminate consonants among the L2 learners of Japanese. Implications for theories of L2 speech are discussed.

Repetitive sessions of tDCS to improve naming in post-stroke aphasia: Insights from an individual patient data (IPD) meta-analysis.

PubMed

Rosso, Charlotte; Arbizu, Céline; Dhennain, Claire; Lamy, Jean-Charles; Samson, Yves

2018-01-01

Small clinical trials reported that repetitive sessions of tDCS could improve naming abilities in post-stroke aphasia. However, systematic meta-analyses found no effect, but all of these analyses pooled data from both single and repetitive sessions at the group level. The aim of this paper was to perform a meta-analysis based on individual patient data to explore the effects of repetitive tDCS sessions on naming in post-stroke aphasia and in prespecified subgroups. We searched for published sham-controlled trials using the keywords "aphasia OR language" AND "transcranial direct current stimulation OR tDCS" AND "stroke". We computed an active and sham improvement ratio by dividing the difference between naming scores after and before the active or sham sessions, respectively, by the total number of picture items. Because of heterogeneity (I2 = 66%, p: 0.002), we used random-effects models to estimate the standardized mean difference (SMD) for the naming outcome. We then analyzed subgroups according to number of sessions, polarity, side/location of the active electrode, post-stroke delay, aphasia severity and comprehension disorders. Seven eligible studies were identified, including 68 chronic stroke patients. tDCS was beneficial on naming ability (35% ±34% in the active vs. 25% ±37% in the sham condition). An SMD of 0.8 (95% CI: 0.27-1.33) was found for the naming outcome. Additionally, there was a dose-dependent effect (5 vs. >5 sessions). We also demonstrated a prevalence of anodal vs. cathodal condition and left vs. right targeting electrode. Finally, repetitive sessions were beneficial regardless of the severity of aphasia, comprehension disorders or post-stroke delay. Repetitive sessions of tDCS are likely to be valuable in enhancing naming accuracy in post-stroke aphasia.

Region based Brain Computer Interface for a home control application.

PubMed

Akman Aydin, Eda; Bay, Omer Faruk; Guler, Inan

2015-08-01

Environment control is one of the important challenges for disabled people who suffer from neuromuscular diseases. Brain Computer Interface (BCI) provides a communication channel between the human brain and the environment without requiring any muscular activation. The most important expectation for a home control application is high accuracy and reliable control. Region-based paradigm is a stimulus paradigm based on oddball principle and requires selection of a target at two levels. This paper presents an application of region based paradigm for a smart home control application for people with neuromuscular diseases. In this study, a region based stimulus interface containing 49 commands was designed. Five non-disabled subjects were attended to the experiments. Offline analysis results of the experiments yielded 95% accuracy for five flashes. This result showed that region based paradigm can be used to select commands of a smart home control application with high accuracy in the low number of repetitions successfully. Furthermore, a statistically significant difference was not observed between the level accuracies.

Accuracy of the Microsoft Kinect sensor for measuring movement in people with Parkinson's disease.

PubMed

Galna, Brook; Barry, Gillian; Jackson, Dan; Mhiripiri, Dadirayi; Olivier, Patrick; Rochester, Lynn

2014-04-01

The Microsoft Kinect sensor (Kinect) is potentially a low-cost solution for clinical and home-based assessment of movement symptoms in people with Parkinson's disease (PD). The purpose of this study was to establish the accuracy of the Kinect in measuring clinically relevant movements in people with PD. Nine people with PD and 10 controls performed a series of movements which were measured concurrently with a Vicon three-dimensional motion analysis system (gold-standard) and the Kinect. The movements included quiet standing, multidirectional reaching and stepping and walking on the spot, and the following items from the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale: hand clasping, finger tapping, foot, leg agility, chair rising and hand pronation. Outcomes included mean timing and range of motion across movement repetitions. The Kinect measured timing of movement repetitions very accurately (low bias, 95% limits of agreement <10% of the group mean, ICCs >0.9 and Pearson's r>0.9). However, the Kinect had varied success measuring spatial characteristics, ranging from excellent for gross movements such as sit-to-stand (ICC=.989) to very poor for fine movement such as hand clasping (ICC=.012). Despite this, results from the Kinect related strongly to those obtained with the Vicon system (Pearson's r>0.8) for most movements. The Kinect can accurately measure timing and gross spatial characteristics of clinically relevant movements but not with the same spatial accuracy for smaller movements, such as hand clasping. Copyright © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Superior Disembedding Performance in Childhood Predicts Adolescent Severity of Repetitive Behaviors: A Seven Years Follow-Up of Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorder.

PubMed

Eussen, Mart L J M; Van Gool, Arthur R; Louwerse, Anneke; Verhulst, Frank C; Greaves-Lord, Kirstin

2016-02-01

Previous research suggests that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show a detail-focused cognitive style. The aim of the current longitudinal study was to investigate whether this detail-focused cognitive style in childhood predicted a higher symptom severity of repetitive and restrictive behaviors and interests (RRBI) in adolescence. The Childhood Embedded Figures Test (CEFT) and the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) were administered in 87 children with ASD at the age of 6-12 years old (T1), and the ADOS was readministered 7 years later when the participants were 12-19 years old (T2). Linear regression analyses were performed to investigate whether accuracy and reaction time in the complex versus simple CEFT condition and performance in the complex condition predicted T2 ADOS RRBI calibrated severity scores (CSS), while taking into consideration relevant covariates and ADOS RRBI CSS at T1. The CEFT performance (accuracy in the complex condition divided by the time needed) significantly predicted higher ADOS RRBI CSS at T2 (ΔR(2)  = 15%). This finding further supports the detail-focused cognitive style in individuals with ASD, and shows that it is also predictive of future RRBI symptoms over time. © 2015 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Operationalization of Sign Language Phonological Similarity and its Effects on Lexical Access.

PubMed

Williams, Joshua T; Stone, Adam; Newman, Sharlene D

2017-07-01

Cognitive mechanisms for sign language lexical access are fairly unknown. This study investigated whether phonological similarity facilitates lexical retrieval in sign languages using measures from a new lexical database for American Sign Language. Additionally, it aimed to determine which similarity metric best fits the present data in order to inform theories of how phonological similarity is constructed within the lexicon and to aid in the operationalization of phonological similarity in sign language. Sign repetition latencies and accuracy were obtained when native signers were asked to reproduce a sign displayed on a computer screen. Results indicated that, as predicted, phonological similarity facilitated repetition latencies and accuracy as long as there were no strict constraints on the type of sublexical features that overlapped. The data converged to suggest that one similarity measure, MaxD, defined as the overlap of any 4 sublexical features, likely best represents mechanisms of phonological similarity in the mental lexicon. Together, these data suggest that lexical access in sign language is facilitated by phonologically similar lexical representations in memory and the optimal operationalization is defined as liberal constraints on overlap of 4 out of 5 sublexical features-similar to the majority of extant definitions in the literature. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Enhancing picture naming with transcranial magnetic stimulation.

PubMed

Mottaghy, Felix M; Sparing, Roland; Töpper, Rudolf

2006-01-01

The enhancement of cognitive function in healthy subjects by medication, training or intervention yields increasing political, social and ethical attention. In this paper facilitatory effects of single-pulse TMS and repetitive TMS on a simple picture naming task are presented. A significant shortening of picture naming latencies was observed after single-pulse TMS over Wernicke's area. The accuracy of the response was not affected by this speed effect. After TMS over the dominant motor cortex or over the non-dominant temporal lobe, however, no facilitation of picture naming was observed. In the rTMS experiments only rTMS of Wernicke's area had an impact on picture naming latencies resulting in a shortening of naming latencies without affecting the accuracy of the response. rTMS over the visual cortex, Broca's area or over the corresponding sites in the non-dominant hemisphere had no effect. Single-pulse TMS is able to facilitate lexical processes due to a general preactivation of language-related neuronal networks when delivered over Wernicke's area. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation over Wernicke's area also leads to a brief facilitation of picture naming possibly by shortening linguistic processing time. Whether TMS or rTMS can be used to aid linguistic therapy in the rehabilitation phase of aphasic patients should be subject of further investigations.

Toward a hybrid brain-computer interface based on repetitive visual stimuli with missing events.

PubMed

Wu, Yingying; Li, Man; Wang, Jing

2016-07-26

Steady-state visually evoked potentials (SSVEPs) can be elicited by repetitive stimuli and extracted in the frequency domain with satisfied performance. However, the temporal information of such stimulus is often ignored. In this study, we utilized repetitive visual stimuli with missing events to present a novel hybrid BCI paradigm based on SSVEP and omitted stimulus potential (OSP). Four discs flickering from black to white with missing flickers served as visual stimulators to simultaneously elicit subject's SSVEPs and OSPs. Key parameters in the new paradigm, including flicker frequency, optimal electrodes, missing flicker duration and intervals of missing events were qualitatively discussed with offline data. Two omitted flicker patterns including missing black/white disc were proposed and compared. Averaging times were optimized with Information Transfer Rate (ITR) in online experiments, where SSVEPs and OSPs were identified using Canonical Correlation Analysis in the frequency domain and Support Vector Machine (SVM)-Bayes fusion in the time domain, respectively. The online accuracy and ITR (mean ± standard deviation) over nine healthy subjects were 79.29 ± 18.14 % and 19.45 ± 11.99 bits/min with missing black disc pattern, and 86.82 ± 12.91 % and 24.06 ± 10.95 bits/min with missing white disc pattern, respectively. The proposed BCI paradigm, for the first time, demonstrated that SSVEPs and OSPs can be simultaneously elicited in single visual stimulus pattern and recognized in real-time with satisfied performance. Besides the frequency features such as SSVEP elicited by repetitive stimuli, we found a new feature (OSP) in the time domain to design a novel hybrid BCI paradigm by adding missing events in repetitive stimuli.

Efficacy of the National Football League-225 Test to Track Changes in One Repetition Maximum Bench Press After Training in National Collegiate Athletic Association Division IA Football Players.

PubMed

Mann, J Bryan; Ivey, Pat A; Stoner, Josh D; Mayhew, Jerry L; Brechue, William F

2015-11-01

Numerous investigations have attested to the efficacy of the National Football League (NFL)-225 test to estimate one repetition maximum (1RM) bench press. However, no studies have assessed the efficacy of the test to track changes in strength across a training program. The purpose of this study was to determine the accuracy of the NFL-225 test for determining the change in 1RM bench press in National Collegiate Athletic Association Division IA college football players after training. Over a 4-year period, players (n = 203) were assessed before and after a 6-week off-season resistance program for 1RM bench press and repetitions completed with 102.3 kg (225 lbs). Test sessions typically occurred within 1 week of each other. Players significantly increased 1RM by 4.2 ± 8.6 kg and NFL-225 repetitions by 0.9 ± 2.3, although the effect size (ES) for each was trivial (ES = 0.03 and 0.07, respectively). National Football League 225 prediction equations had higher correlations with 1RM before training (intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC] = 0.95) than after training (ICC = 0.75). The correlation between the change in NFL-225 repetitions and change in 1RM was low and negative (r = -0.22, p < 0.02). Short-term heavy resistance training may alter the association between muscular strength and muscular endurance in college football players and render the NFL-225 test less effective in predicting the change in 1RM bench press strength after short-term training.

The Role of Working Memory Capacity and Interference Resolution Mechanisms in Task Switching

PubMed Central

Pettigrew, Corinne; Martin, Randi C.

2015-01-01

Theories of task switching have emphasized a number of control mechanisms that may support the ability to flexibly switch between tasks. The present study examined the extent to which individual differences in working memory (WM) capacity and two measures of interference resolution, response-distractor inhibition and resistance to proactive interference (PI), account for variability in task switching, including global costs, local costs, and N-2 repetition costs. 102 young and 60 older adults were tested on a battery of tasks. Composite scores were created for WM capacity, response-distractor inhibition, and resistance to PI; shifting was indexed by rate residual scores which combine response time and accuracy and account for individual differences in processing speed. Composite scores served as predictors of task switching. WM was significantly related to global switch costs. While resistance to PI and WM explained some variance in local costs, these effects did not reach significance. In contrast, none of the control measures explained variance in N-2 repetition costs. Furthermore, age effects were only evident for N-2 repetition costs, with older adults demonstrating larger costs than young adults. Results are discussed within the context of theoretical models of task switching. PMID:26594895

The role of working memory capacity and interference resolution mechanisms in task switching.

PubMed

Pettigrew, Corinne; Martin, Randi C

2016-12-01

Theories of task switching have emphasized a number of control mechanisms that may support the ability to flexibly switch between tasks. The present study examined the extent to which individual differences in working memory (WM) capacity and two measures of interference resolution, response-distractor inhibition and resistance to proactive interference (PI), account for variability in task switching, including global costs, local costs, and N-2 repetition costs. A total of 102 young and 60 older adults were tested on a battery of tasks. Composite scores were created for WM capacity, response-distractor inhibition, and resistance to PI; shifting was indexed by rate residual scores, which combine response time and accuracy and account for individual differences in processing speed. Composite scores served as predictors of task switching. WM was significantly related to global switch costs. While resistance to PI and WM explained some variance in local costs, these effects did not reach significance. In contrast, none of the control measures explained variance in N-2 repetition costs. Furthermore, age effects were only evident for N-2 repetition costs, with older adults demonstrating larger costs than young adults. Results are discussed within the context of theoretical models of task switching.

High speed micromachining with high power UV laser

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Patel, Rajesh S.; Bovatsek, James M.

2013-03-01

Increasing demand for creating fine features with high accuracy in manufacturing of electronic mobile devices has fueled growth for lasers in manufacturing. High power, high repetition rate ultraviolet (UV) lasers provide an opportunity to implement a cost effective high quality, high throughput micromachining process in a 24/7 manufacturing environment. The energy available per pulse and the pulse repetition frequency (PRF) of diode pumped solid state (DPSS) nanosecond UV lasers have increased steadily over the years. Efficient use of the available energy from a laser is important to generate accurate fine features at a high speed with high quality. To achieve maximum material removal and minimal thermal damage for any laser micromachining application, use of the optimal process parameters including energy density or fluence (J/cm2), pulse width, and repetition rate is important. In this study we present a new high power, high PRF QuasarR 355-40 laser from Spectra-Physics with TimeShiftTM technology for unique software adjustable pulse width, pulse splitting, and pulse shaping capabilities. The benefits of these features for micromachining include improved throughput and quality. Specific example and results of silicon scribing are described to demonstrate the processing benefits of the Quasar's available power, PRF, and TimeShift technology.

Identification and Remediation of Phonological and Motor Errors in Acquired Sound Production Impairment

PubMed Central

Gagnon, Bernadine; Miozzo, Michele

2017-01-01

Purpose This study aimed to test whether an approach to distinguishing errors arising in phonological processing from those arising in motor planning also predicts the extent to which repetition-based training can lead to improved production of difficult sound sequences. Method Four individuals with acquired speech production impairment who produced consonant cluster errors involving deletion were examined using a repetition task. We compared the acoustic details of productions with deletion errors in target consonant clusters to singleton consonants. Changes in accuracy over the course of the study were also compared. Results Two individuals produced deletion errors consistent with a phonological locus of the errors, and 2 individuals produced errors consistent with a motoric locus of the errors. The 2 individuals who made phonologically driven errors showed no change in performance on a repetition training task, whereas the 2 individuals with motoric errors improved in their production of both trained and untrained items. Conclusions The results extend previous findings about a metric for identifying the source of sound production errors in individuals with both apraxia of speech and aphasia. In particular, this work may provide a tool for identifying predominant error types in individuals with complex deficits. PMID:28655044

Genetic variance in a component of the language acquisition device: ROBO1 polymorphisms associated with phonological buffer deficits.

PubMed

Bates, Timothy C; Luciano, Michelle; Medland, Sarah E; Montgomery, Grant W; Wright, Margaret J; Martin, Nicholas G

2011-01-01

The region containing ROBO1 (Chromosome 3p12.3) has been implicated as a susceptibility gene for reading disorder and language deficit by translocation and linkage data. No association studies have yet been reported supporting any candidate gene. Here we report the first association of this gene with language deficits, specifically with phonological buffer deficits (a phenotype implicated in language acquisition, Specific Language Impairment and Speech Sound Disorder) and dyslexia (reading and spelling ability traits) in an unselected sample of adolescent twins and their siblings. Family-based analyses were performed on 144 tag SNPs in ROBO1, typed in 538 families with up to five offspring and tested for association with a developmental marker of language impairment (phonological buffer capacity, assessed using non word repetition). A reading and spelling ability measure--based on validated measures of lexical processing (irregular word) and grapheme-phoneme decoding (pseudo word)--and measures of short-term and working memory were also analysed. Significant association for phonological buffer capacity was observed for 21 of 144 SNPs tested, peaking at 8.70 × 10(-05) and 9.30 × 10(-05) for SNPs rs6803202 and rs4535189 respectively for nonword repetition, values that survive correction for multiple testing. Twenty-two SNPs showed significant associations for verbal storage (forward digit span)--a trait linked to phonological span. By contrast, just 5 SNPs reached nominal significance for working-memory, not surviving correction, and, importantly, only one SNP in the 144 tested reached nominal significance (0.04) for association with reading and spelling ability. These results provide strong support for ROBO1 as a gene involved in a core trait underpinning language acquisition, with a specific function in supporting a short-term buffer for arbitrary phonological strings. These effects of ROBO1 appear to be unrelated to brain mechanisms underpinning reading ability, at least by adolescence. While replication will be critical, the present results strongly support ROBO1 as the first gene discovered to be associated with language deficits affecting normal variation in language ability. Its functional role in neuronal migration underlying bilateral symmetry and lateralization of neuronal function further suggests a role in the evolution of human language ability.

Parallel and Serial Reading Processes in Children's Word and Nonword Reading

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

van den Boer, Madelon; de Jong, Peter F.

2015-01-01

Fluent reading is characterized by rapid and accurate identification of words. It is commonly accepted that such identification relies on the availability of orthographic knowledge. However, whether this orthographic knowledge should be seen as an accumulation of word-specific knowledge in a lexicon acquired through decoding or as a well-developed…

Metrical Encoding in Adults Who Do and Do Not Stutter

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Coalson, Geoffrey A.; Byrd, Courtney T.

2015-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore metrical aspects of phonological encoding (i.e., stress and syllable boundary assignment) in adults who do and do not stutter (AWS and AWNS, respectively). Method: Participants monitored nonwords for target sounds during silent phoneme monitoring tasks across two distinct experiments. For…

Reading Skills in Children with Down Syndrome: A Meta-Analytic Review

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Naess, Kari-Anne B.; Melby-Lervag, Monica; Hulme, Charles; Lyster, Solveig-Alma Halaas

2012-01-01

The authors examine the reading profile in children with Down syndrome by comparing the nonword decoding skills in children with Down syndrome and typically developing children matched for word recognition level. Journal articles published before 04.05.2010 were identified by using the keyword Down* cross-referenced to "reading", "literacy",…

Beyond Phonotactic Frequency: Presentation Frequency Effects Word Productions in Specific Language Impairment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Plante, Elena; Bahl, Megha; Vance, Rebecca; Gerken, LouAnn

2011-01-01

Phonotactic frequency effects on word production are thought to reflect accumulated experience with a language. Here we demonstrate that frequency effects can also be obtained through short-term manipulations of the input to children. We presented children with nonwords in an experiment that systematically manipulated English phonotactic frequency…

Order Short-Term Memory Capacity Predicts Nonword Reading and Spelling in First and Second Grade

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Binamé, Florence; Poncelet, Martine

2016-01-01

Recent theories of short-term memory (STM) distinguish between item information, which reflects the temporary activation of long-term representations stored in the language system, and serial-order information, which is encoded in a specific representational system that is independent of the language network. Some studies examining the…

Tasty Non-Words and Neighbours: The Cognitive Roots of Lexical-Gustatory Synaesthesia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Simner, Julia; Haywood, Sarah L.

2009-01-01

For lexical-gustatory synaesthetes, words trigger automatic, associated food sensations (e.g., for JB, the word "slope" tastes of over-ripe melon). Our study tests two claims about this unusual condition: that synaesthetic tastes are associated with abstract levels of word representation (concepts/lemmas), and that the first tastes to crystallise…

Word Recognition Processing Efficiency as a Component of Second Language Listening

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Joyce, Paul

2013-01-01

This study investigated the application of the speeded lexical decision task to L2 aural processing efficiency. One-hundred and twenty Japanese university students completed an aural word/nonword task. When the variation of lexical decision time (CV) was correlated with reaction time (RT), the results suggested that the single-word recognition…

Searching for Syllabic Coding Units in Speech Perception

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dumay, Nicolas; Content, Alain

2012-01-01

Two auditory priming experiments tested whether the effect of final phonological overlap relies on syllabic representations. Amount of shared phonemic information and syllabic status of the overlap between nonword primes and targets were varied orthogonally. In the related conditions, CV.CCVC items shared the last syllable (e.g., vi.klyd-p[image…