Adaptation of a semantic picture-word interference paradigm for future language mapping with transcranial magnetic stimulation: A behavioural study.

Neuro-navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) helps to identify language-related cortical regions prior to brain tumour surgery. We adapted a semantic picture-word interference (PWI) paradigm from psycholinguistics to high-resolution TMS language mapping which prospectively can be used to specifically address the level of semantic processing. In PWI, pictures are presented along with distractor words which facilitate or inhibit the lexical access to the picture name. These modulatory effects of distractors can be annihilated in language-sensitive areas by the inhibitory effects of TMS on language processing. The rationale here is to observe the distractor effect without active stimulation and then to observe presumably its elimination by interference of the TMS stimulation. The special requirements to use PWI in this setting are (1) identifying word material for accelerating reliably naming latencies, choosing (2) the ideal presentation modality, and (3) the appropriate timing of distractor presentation. These are then controlled in real TMS language mapping. To adapt a semantic PWI naming paradigm for TMS application we employed 30 object-pictures in spoken German language. Part-whole associative semantic related or unrelated distractors were presented in two experiments including 15 healthy volunteers each, once auditorily and once visually. Data analysis across the entire stimulus set revealed a trend for facilitation in the visual condition, whereas no effects were observed for auditory distractors. In a sub-set, we found a significant facilitation effect for visual semantic distractors. Thus, with this study we provide a well-controlled item set for future studies implementing effective TMS language mapping applying visual semantic PWI.

Estudio normativo de la familiaridad subjetiva en niños de segundo grado de Educación Primaria en Medellín (Colombia) / A Normative Study of Subjective Familiarity in Children of the Second Grade of School in Medellin (Colombia)

Resumen El objetivo de este estudio, consistió en evaluar la familiaridad subjetiva (FS) de 827 palabras en 187 niños de segundo grado de educación primaria de la ciudad de Medellín. Las palabras, fueron extraídas de diferentes textos escolares y se ajustaron a tres parámetros psicolingüísticos: consistencia ortográfica, estructura silábica y longitud. En la prueba realizada, los niños debían indicar si conocían nada, poco, mucho o muchísimo cada una de las palabras seleccionadas. De acuerdo con esto, se asignó un valor numérico a cada palabra. Un análisis estadístico de las medianas de las palabras, permitió seleccionar 405 palabras con FS alta y 422 palabras con FS baja. Los resultados, muestran que los parámetros psicolingüísticos propuestos se relacionan con la FS.

Abstract The aim of this study was to assess the subjective familiarity of 827 words in 187 second-grade children from the city of Medellín. The words were taken from textbooks and adjusted to three psycholinguistic parameters: orthographic consistency, syllabic structure and length. In these tests, the children had to indicate whether they knew each of the words and according to their responses, a numerical value was assigned. A statistical analysis of the medians allowed the selection of 405 words of high subjective familiarity y 422 words of low subjective familiarity. The results show that the proposed psycholinguistic parameters relate to subjective familiarity.

Emotive and cognitive processes in cancer patients: linguistic profiles of post-traumatic growth.

Starting from the challenge offered by the authors of the post-traumatic growth (PTG) construct (Tedeschi & Calhoun, ), this paper aims to explore the existence of different linguistic profiles of cognitive and emotional processes in PTG narratives. The autobiographical narratives of 40 cancer patients were analysed for both PTG and linguistic indicators of emotions and cognitive processes. PTG was operationalised as the presence of redemption sequences (McAdams, ). The emotional and cognitive linguistic indicators were analysed by the LIWC program (Pennebaker & Francis, ). All the narratives included PTG (M = 3.55, SD = 1.91). Three clusters of linguistic profiles were retained (60%-79% of variance explained): "disengagement", "assimilative" and "accommodative". These clusters differed significantly by PTG (F = 9.70, p < .000, η2  = .34). Given the limitations of the study, the results highlight the importance of the linguistic approach to a deeper understanding of PTG and to tailored pathways of its promotion.

Asymmetric partner pronoun use and demand-withdraw interaction in couples coping with health problems.

Recent research links first-person plural pronoun use (we-talk) by individual romantic partners to adaptive relationship functioning and individual health outcomes. To examine a possible boundary condition of adaptive we-talk in couples coping with health problems, we correlated asymmetric couple-level we/I-ratios (more we-talk relative to I-talk by the spouse than the patient) with a concurrent pattern of directional demand-withdraw (D-W) interaction in which the spouse demands change while the patient withdraws. Couples in which a partner who abused alcohol (n = 65), smoked cigarettes despite having heart or lung disease (n = 24), or had congestive heart failure (n = 58) discussed a health-related disagreement during a video-recorded interaction task. Transcripts of these conversations provided measures of pronoun use for each partner, and trained observers coded D-W patterns from the recordings. As expected, partner asymmetry in we/I-ratio scores predicted directional demand-withdraw, such that spouses who used more we-talk (relative to I-talk) than patients tended to assume the demand role in concurrent D-W interaction. Asymmetric I-talk rather than we-talk accounted for this association, and asymmetric you-talk contributed independently as well. In contrast to previous studies of we-talk by individual partners, the present results identify dyad-level pronoun patterns that clearly do not mark beneficent processes: asymmetric partner we/I-ratios and you-talk reflect problematic demand-withdraw interaction.

Semantic similarity of labels and inductive generalization: taking a second look.

Prior research suggests that preschoolers can generalize object properties based on category information conveyed by semantically-similar labels. However, previous research did not control for co-occurrence probability of labels in natural speech. The current studies re-assessed children's generalization with semantically-similar labels. Experiment 1 indicated that adults made category-based inferences regardless of co-occurrence probability; however, 4-year-olds generalized with semantically-similar labels that co-occurred in child-directed speech (e.g., bunny-rabbit) but not with non-co-occurring labels (e.g., crocodile-alligator). Experiment 2 indicated that generalization with semantically-similar labels increased gradually between 4- and 6-years of age. These results are discussed in relation to theories of early learning.

Congenital bilateral perisylvian syndrome: familial occurrence, clinical and psycholinguistic aspects correlated with MRI.

OBJECTIVE: Congenital bilateral perisylvian syndrome (CBPS) is frequently caused by polymicrogyria (PMG). The aim of this study was to correlate the clinical and psycholinguistic aspects with neuroradiological data of patients with CBPS. METHODS: Thirty-one patients were studied. We performed a clinical investigation of the patients and their families, including MRI scanning, neuropsychological tests and language evaluation. RESULTS: The statistical analysis showed that: a) prenatal events are associated with the non-familial type of PMG; b) diffuse PMG is associated with pseudobulbar signs, as opposed to BPPP; c) motor deficit is associated with diffuse PMG; d) epilepsy is equally present in patients with both familial or non-familial PMG, but is more frequently seen in patients with diffuse PMG; e) dyslexia and SLI can be a feature of both the diffuse or BPPP, and either familial or sporadic cases of PMG. CONCLUSIONS: The severity of clinical manifestations in CBPS is correlated with the extent of cortical involvement. Most patients with CBPS have a history of speech delay or language difficulties and no epilepsy. Dyslexia can be found in patients with PMG.

Processing events: behavioral and neuromagnetic correlates of Aspectual Coercion.

Much recent psycho- and neuro-linguistic work has aimed to elucidate the mechanisms by which sentence meanings are composed by investigating the processing of semantic mismatch. One controversial case for theories of semantic composition is expressions such as the clown jumped for ten minutes, in which the aspectual properties of a punctual verb clash with those of a durative modifier. Such sentences have been proposed to involve a coercion operation which shifts the punctual meaning of the verb to an iterative one. However, processing studies addressing this hypothesis have yielded mixed results. In this study, we tested four hypotheses of how aspectual mismatch is resolved with self-paced reading and magnetoencephalography. Using a set of verbs normed for punctuality, we identified an immediate behavioral cost of mismatch. The neural correlates of this processing were found to match effects in midline prefrontal regions previously implicated in the resolution of complement coercion. We also identified earlier effects in right-lateral frontal and temporal sites. We suggest that of the representational hypotheses currently in the literature, these data are most consistent with an account where aspectual mismatch initially involves the composition of an anomalous meaning that is later repaired via coercion.

Effects of frequency and similarity neighborhoods on pharmacists' visual perception of drug names.

To minimize drug name confusion errors, regulators, drug companies, and clinicians need tools that help them predict which names are most likely to be involved in confusions. Two experiments, carried out in the United States, examined the effects of stimulus frequency (i.e., how frequently a target name is prescribed), neighborhood frequency (i.e., how frequently prescribed are the "neighbors" of the target name), and neighborhood density (how many names are within a fixed distance of the target name) on the probability of pharmacists making an error in a visual perceptual identification task. In both experiments, the task was to correctly identify a series of blurry drug names after a 3s presentation on a computer monitor. In the first experiment, 45 pharmacists viewed 160 typewritten names, incorrectly identifying 60.6% of them. Random effects regression revealed a significant beneficial effect of stimulus frequency and a detrimental effect of neighborhood density. Significant two-way interactions were observed between stimulus frequency and neighborhood density and neighborhood frequency and neighborhood density. In the second experiment, 37 pharmacists viewed 156 handwritten drug names, incorrectly identifying 45.7%. Random effects regression revealed significant main effects of stimulus frequency and neighborhood density. These were contained within a significant three-way interaction: The interaction between stimulus frequency and neighborhood density was present at high but not low neighborhood frequency. Objectively measurable frequency and neighborhood characteristics have predictable effects on errors in pharmacists' visual perception. Organizations that coin and evaluate drug names, as well as hospitals, pharmacies, and health systems, should consider these characteristics when assessing visually confusing names.

An MEG study of picture naming.

The purpose of this study was to relate a psycholinguistic processing model of picture naming to the dynamics of cortical activation during picture naming. The activation was recorded from eight Dutch subjects with a whole-head neuromagnetometer. The processing model, based on extensive naming latency studies, is a stage model. In preparing a picture"s name, the speaker performs a chain of specific operations. They are, in this order, computing the visual percept, activating an appropriate lexical concept, selecting the target word from the mental lexicon, phonological encoding, phonetic encoding, and initiation of articulation. The time windows for each of these operations are reasonably well known and could be related to the peak activity of dipole sources in the individual magnetic response patterns. The analyses showed a clear progression over these time windows from early occipital activation, via parietal and temporal to frontal activation. The major specific findings were that (1) a region in the left posterior temporal lobe, agreeing with the location of Wernicke"s area, showed prominent activation starting about 200 msec after picture onset and peaking at about 350 msec (i.e., within the stage of phonological encoding), and (2) a consistent activation was found in the right parietal cortex, peaking at about 230 msec after picture onset, thus preceding and partly overlapping with the left temporal response. An interpretation in terms of the management of visual attention is proposed.