Phonemic verbal fluency task in adults with high-level literacy.

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Opasso, Patrícia Romano; Barreto, Simone Dos Santos; Ortiz, Karin Zazo

2016-01-01

To establish normative parameters for the F-A-S form of the phonemic verbal fluency test, in a population of Brazilian Portuguese speaking adults with high-level literacy. The sample comprised 40 male and female volunteers aged 19 to 59 years, and at least 8 years of formal education. Volunteers were first submitted to the Mini-Mental State Examination and the Clock Drawing cognitive screening tests, then to the F-A-S Verbal Phonemic Fluency Test; in this test, examinees were given 60 seconds to generate as many words as possible beginning with each of the three test letters. The means for number of words beginning the letters F, A and S and for total number of words beginning with either letter generated per minute corresponded to 15.3, 14.4, 13.9 and 43.5, respectively. Reference values obtained from young adults with high levels of literacy submitted to the F-A-S Verbal Phonemic Fluency Test in this study were similar to those reported in the international literature. These reference values can be used for clinical assessment of language disorder and neuropsychological evaluation. Obter parâmetros de normalidade na tarefa de fluência verbal fonêmica, versão F-A-S, em uma população de alto letramento de adultos falantes do português brasileiro. A amostra foi constituída por 40 voluntários, de ambos os sexos, com idade entre 19 e 59 anos, e com mais de 8 anos de estudo. Todos os voluntários foram inicialmente submetidos ao Miniexame do Estado Mental e ao Teste do Desenho do Relógio, para fins de rastreio cognitivo, e, então, ao Teste de Fluência Verbal Fonêmica F-A-S. Neste último, os indivíduos foram orientados a produzirem o maior número de palavras que conseguissem, iniciadas com cada uma das três letras ditas pelo examinador, em um intervalo de 60 segundos cada. As médias das palavras produzidas com as letras F-A-S foram as seguintes: "F" = 15,3 palavras por minuto; "A" = 14,4 palavras por minuto; e "S" = 13,9 palavras por minuto. A m

SEMANTIC VERBAL FLUENCY OF THE BILINGUAL CHILDREN WITH MILD INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY

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Nenad GLUMBIKJ

2005-06-01

Full Text Available Semantic verbal fluency test is reliable instrument for detection of various kinds of neuropsychological deficits. Participants’ attainments in this test are influenced by array of socio-cultural factors. The occurrence of “twofold semilingualism” belongs to these cultural factors.The objective of this research is to determine differences between monolingual and bilingual children with mild mental retardation in semantic verbal fluency test.The sample consisted of 90 participants with mild mental retardation, of both sexes, aged from 12 to 15. The whole sample was divided into three subsets: 30 monolingual children (M1, who speak only Serbian, 30 monolingual Roma children who do not speak Romany (M2 and 30 bilingual Roma children who speak both, Romany and Serbian language (B.It was found that both groups of monolingual children have better performances in semantic fluency tasks than bilingual children.

Exploring depression, self-esteem and verbal fluency with different degrees of internet addiction among Chinese college students.

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Nie, Jia; Zhang, Wei; Liu, Ying

2017-01-01

The aims of this study were to explore depression, self-esteem and verbal fluency functions among normal internet users, mild internet addictions and severe internet addictions. The survey sample consisted of 316 college students, and their internet addiction symptoms, depression and self-esteem symptoms were assessed using the Revised Chen Internet Addiction Scale (CIAS-R), Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale (ZSDS), Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES), respectively. From this sample, 16 students with non-addictions, 19 students with mild internet addiction (sub-MIA) and 15 students with severe internet addiction (sub-SIA) were recruited and subjected to the classical verbal fluency tests, including the semantic and phonemic fluency task. The results indicated that severe internet addiction in the survey sample showed the highest tendency towards depressive symptoms and lowest self-esteem scores, and sub-SIA showed poor performance on the semantic fluency task. In conclusion, severe internet addiction was significantly associated with depression, low self-esteem and semantic verbal fluency problems. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Verbal fluency in children with intellectual disability: Influence of basic executive components

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Gligorović Milica

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Phonemic and semantic fluency tasks are frequently used to differentiate executive control roles and the integrity of lexical-semantic representation. The main goal of this study is to determine the influence of basic executive components on phonemic and semantic productivity in children with mild intellectual disability. The sample consisted of 95 children with unspecified mild intellectual disability (MID, ages 10-13.11. Phonemic fluency was assessed by the Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT, while semantic fluency was assessed by the Category Naming Test (CNT. Cognitive flexibility was assessed by Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST and Trail Making Test (TMT. Number Manipulation Task (NMT was used for the verbal working memory assessment, while Day/Night Stroop Task was used for the assessment of inhibitory control. The results analysis showed that all of the assessed EF components significantly affect phonemic productivity. Semantic productivity significantly depends on WCST and TMT performance. Verbal working memory and inhibitory control do not significantly contribute to semantic productivity. The results of our study indicate that the discrepancy between phonemic and semantic productivity in children with MID could be directly associated with the basic executive functions components.

A normative study of lexical verbal fluency in an educationally-diverse elderly population.

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Kim, Bong Jo; Lee, Cheol Soon; Oh, Byoung Hoon; Hong, Chang Hyung; Lee, Kang Soo; Son, Sang Joon; Han, Changsu; Park, Moon Ho; Jeong, Hyun-Ghang; Kim, Tae Hui; Park, Joon Hyuk; Kim, Ki Woong

2013-12-01

Lexical fluency tests are frequently used to assess language and executive function in clinical practice. We investigated the influences of age, gender, and education on lexical verbal fluency in an educationally-diverse, elderly Korean population and provided its' normative information. We administered the lexical verbal fluency test (LVFT) to 1676 community-dwelling, cognitively normal subjects aged 60 years or over. In a stepwise linear regression analysis, education (B=0.40, SE=0.02, standardized B=0.506) and age (B=-0.10, SE=0.01, standardized B=-0.15) had significant effects on LVFT scores (p0.05). Education explained 28.5% of the total variance in LVFT scores, which was much larger than the variance explained by age (5.42%). Accordingly, we presented normative data of the LVFT stratified by age (60-69, 70-74, 75-79, and ≥80 years) and education (0-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12, and ≥13 years). The LVFT norms should provide clinically useful data for evaluating elderly people and help improve the interpretation of verbal fluency tasks and allow for greater diagnostic accuracy.

Spanish normative studies in young adults (NEURONORMA young adults project): norms for verbal fluency tests.

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Casals-Coll, M; Sánchez-Benavides, G; Quintana, M; Manero, R M; Rognoni, T; Calvo, L; Palomo, R; Aranciva, F; Tamayo, F; Peña-Casanova, J

2013-01-01

Lexical fluency tests are frequently used in clinical practice to assess language and executive function. As part of the Spanish normative studies project in young adults (NEURONORMA young adults project), we provide age- and education-adjusted normative data for 3 semantic fluency tasks (animals, fruits and vegetables, and kitchen tools), three formal lexical fluency tasks (words beginning with P, M and R), three excluded-letter fluency tasks (words excluding A, E and S) and a verb fluency task. The sample consisted of 179 participants who are cognitively normal and range in age from 18 to 49 years. Tables are provided to convert raw scores to scaled scores. Age- and education-adjusted scores are provided by applying linear regression techniques. The results show that education impacted most of the verbal fluency test scores, with no effects related to age and only minimal effects related to sex. The norms obtained will be extremely useful in the clinical evaluation of young Spanish adults. Copyright © 2011 Sociedad Española de Neurología. Published by Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.

Verbal Fluency and Verbal Short-Term Memory in Adults with Down Syndrome and Unspecified Intellectual Disability

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Stavroussi, Panayiota; Andreou, Georgia; Karagiannopoulou, Dimitra

2016-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine verbal fluency and verbal short-term memory in 12 adults with Down syndrome (DS) and 12 adults with Intellectual Disability (ID) of unspecified origin, matched for receptive vocabulary and chronological age. Participants' performance was assessed on two conditions of a verbal fluency test, namely, semantic…

Sexual-orientation-related differences in verbal fluency.

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Rahman, Qazi; Abrahams, Sharon; Wilson, Glenn D

2003-04-01

This study examined the performance of 60 heterosexual men, 60 gay men, 60 heterosexual women, and 60 lesbians on 3 tests of verbal fluency known to show gender differences: letter, category, and synonym fluency. Gay men and lesbians showed opposite-sex shifts in their profile of scores. For letter fluency, gay men outperformed all other groups; lesbians showed the lowest scores. For category fluency, gay men and heterosexual women jointly outperformed lesbians and heterosexual men. Finally, gay men outperformed all other groups on synonym fluency, whereas lesbians and heterosexual men performed similarly. A difference between heterosexual men and women was demonstrated on category and synonym fluency only. The findings implicate within-sex differences in the functioning of the prefrontal and temporal cortices.

Apathy and Reduced Speed of Processing Underlie Decline in Verbal Fluency following DBS

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Jennifer A. Foley

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Objective. Reduced verbal fluency is a strikingly uniform finding following deep brain stimulation (DBS for Parkinson’s disease (PD. The precise cognitive mechanism underlying this reduction remains unclear, but theories have suggested reduced motivation, linguistic skill, and/or executive function. It is of note, however, that previous reports have failed to consider the potential role of any changes in speed of processing. Thus, the aim of this study was to examine verbal fluency changes with a particular focus on the role of cognitive speed. Method. In this study, 28 patients with PD completed measures of verbal fluency, motivation, language, executive functioning, and speed of processing, before and after DBS. Results. As expected, there was a marked decline in verbal fluency but also in a timed test of executive functions and two measures of speed of processing. Verbal fluency decline was associated with markers of linguistic and executive functioning, but not after speed of processing was statistically controlled for. In contrast, greater decline in verbal fluency was associated with higher levels of apathy at baseline, which was not associated with changes in cognitive speed. Discussion. Reduced generativity and processing speed may account for the marked reduction in verbal fluency commonly observed following DBS.

Apathy and Reduced Speed of Processing Underlie Decline in Verbal Fluency following DBS

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Foltynie, Tom; Zrinzo, Ludvic; Hyam, Jonathan A.; Limousin, Patricia

2017-01-01

Objective. Reduced verbal fluency is a strikingly uniform finding following deep brain stimulation (DBS) for Parkinson's disease (PD). The precise cognitive mechanism underlying this reduction remains unclear, but theories have suggested reduced motivation, linguistic skill, and/or executive function. It is of note, however, that previous reports have failed to consider the potential role of any changes in speed of processing. Thus, the aim of this study was to examine verbal fluency changes with a particular focus on the role of cognitive speed. Method. In this study, 28 patients with PD completed measures of verbal fluency, motivation, language, executive functioning, and speed of processing, before and after DBS. Results. As expected, there was a marked decline in verbal fluency but also in a timed test of executive functions and two measures of speed of processing. Verbal fluency decline was associated with markers of linguistic and executive functioning, but not after speed of processing was statistically controlled for. In contrast, greater decline in verbal fluency was associated with higher levels of apathy at baseline, which was not associated with changes in cognitive speed. Discussion. Reduced generativity and processing speed may account for the marked reduction in verbal fluency commonly observed following DBS. PMID:28408788

Apathy and Reduced Speed of Processing Underlie Decline in Verbal Fluency following DBS.

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Foley, Jennifer A; Foltynie, Tom; Zrinzo, Ludvic; Hyam, Jonathan A; Limousin, Patricia; Cipolotti, Lisa

2017-01-01

Objective . Reduced verbal fluency is a strikingly uniform finding following deep brain stimulation (DBS) for Parkinson's disease (PD). The precise cognitive mechanism underlying this reduction remains unclear, but theories have suggested reduced motivation, linguistic skill, and/or executive function. It is of note, however, that previous reports have failed to consider the potential role of any changes in speed of processing. Thus, the aim of this study was to examine verbal fluency changes with a particular focus on the role of cognitive speed. Method . In this study, 28 patients with PD completed measures of verbal fluency, motivation, language, executive functioning, and speed of processing, before and after DBS. Results . As expected, there was a marked decline in verbal fluency but also in a timed test of executive functions and two measures of speed of processing. Verbal fluency decline was associated with markers of linguistic and executive functioning, but not after speed of processing was statistically controlled for. In contrast, greater decline in verbal fluency was associated with higher levels of apathy at baseline, which was not associated with changes in cognitive speed. Discussion . Reduced generativity and processing speed may account for the marked reduction in verbal fluency commonly observed following DBS.

Verbal fluency in bilingual Spanish/English Alzheimer's disease patients.

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Salvatierra, Judy; Rosselli, Monica; Acevedo, Amarilis; Duara, Ranjan

2007-01-01

Studies have demonstrated that in verbal fluency tests, monolinguals with Alzheimer's disease (AD) show greater difficulties retrieving words based on semantic rather than phonemic rules. The present study aimed to determine whether this difficulty was reproduced in both languages of Spanish/English bilinguals with mild to moderate AD whose primary language was Spanish. Performance on semantic and phonemic verbal fluency of 11 bilingual AD patients was compared to the performance of 11 cognitively normal, elderly bilingual individuals matched for gender, age, level of education, and degree of bilingualism. Cognitively normal subjects retrieved significantly more items under the semantic condition compared to the phonemic, whereas the performance of AD patients was similar under both conditions, suggesting greater decline in semantic verbal fluency tests. This pattern was produced in both languages, implying a related semantic decline in both languages. Results from this study should be considered preliminary because of the small sample size.

Pattern of neural responses to verbal fluency shows diagnostic specificity for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

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Walshe Muriel

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Impairments in executive function and language processing are characteristic of both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Their functional neuroanatomy demonstrate features that are shared as well as specific to each disorder. Determining the distinct pattern of neural responses in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder may provide biomarkers for their diagnoses. Methods 104 participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI scans while performing a phonological verbal fluency task. Subjects were 32 patients with schizophrenia in remission, 32 patients with bipolar disorder in an euthymic state, and 40 healthy volunteers. Neural responses to verbal fluency were examined in each group, and the diagnostic potential of the pattern of the neural responses was assessed with machine learning analysis. Results During the verbal fluency task, both patient groups showed increased activation in the anterior cingulate, left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and right putamen as compared to healthy controls, as well as reduced deactivation of precuneus and posterior cingulate. The magnitude of activation was greatest in patients with schizophrenia, followed by patients with bipolar disorder and then healthy individuals. Additional recruitment in the right inferior frontal and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortices was observed in schizophrenia relative to both bipolar disorder and healthy subjects. The pattern of neural responses correctly identified individual patients with schizophrenia with an accuracy of 92%, and those with bipolar disorder with an accuracy of 79% in which mis-classification was typically of bipolar subjects as healthy controls. Conclusions In summary, both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are associated with altered function in prefrontal, striatal and default mode networks, but the magnitude of this dysfunction is particularly marked in schizophrenia. The pattern of response to verbal fluency is highly

Reduced prefrontal activation during verbal fluency task in chronic insomnia disorder: a multichannel near-infrared spectroscopy study

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Sun JJ

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Jing-Jing Sun,1,2 Xiao-Min Liu,2 Chen-Yu Shen,2 Xiao-Qian Zhang,1,2 Gao-Xiang Sun,2 Kun Feng,2 Bo Xu,2 Xia-Jin Ren,1,2 Xiang-Yun Ma,1,2 Po-Zi Liu2 1Medical Center, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, 2Department of Psychiatry, YuQuan Hospital, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China Purpose: Daytime complaints such as memory and attention deficits and failure to accomplish daily tasks are common in insomnia patients. However, objective psychological tests to detect cognitive impairment are equivocal. Neural function associated with cognitive performance may explain the discrepancy. The aim of this study was to investigate the hemodynamic response patterns of patients with chronic insomnia disorder (CID using the noninvasive and low-cost functional neuroimaging technique of multichannel near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS in order to identify changes of neural function associated with cognitive performance.Patients and methods: Twenty-four CID patients and twenty-five healthy controls matched for age, right-hand dominance, educational level, and gender were examined during verbal fluency tasks (VFT using NIRS. A covariance analysis was conducted to analyze differences of oxygenated hemoglobin (oxy-Hb changes in prefrontal cortex (PFC between the two groups and reduce the influence of the severity of depression. Pearson correlation coeffcients were calculated to examine the relationship between the oxy-Hb changes, with the severity of insomnia and depressive symptoms assessed by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI and the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAMD.Results: The number of words generated during the VFT in CID groups showed no statistical differences with healthy controls. CID patients showed hypoactivation in the PFC during the cognitive task. In addition, we found that the function of left orbitofrontal cortex (OFC during the VFT was significantly negatively correlated with the PSQI scores and the function of right dorsolateral PFC

Performances on five verbal fluency tests in a healthy, elderly Danish sample

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Stokholm, Jette; Jørgensen, Kasper; Vogel, Asmus

2013-01-01

Verbal fluency tests are widely used as measures of language and executive functions. This study presents data for five tests; semantic fluency (animals, supermarket items and alternating between cities and professions), lexical fluency (s-words), and action fluency (verbs) based on a sample of 100...

Verbal fluency in idiopathic Parkinson's disease

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Thut, G.; Antonini, A.; Roelcke, U.; Missimer, J.; Maguire, R.P.; Leenders, K.L.; Regard, M.

1997-01-01

In the present study, the relationship between resting metabolism and verbal fluency, a correlate of frontal lobe cognition, was examined in 33 PD patients. We aimed to determine brain structures involved in frontal lobe cognitive impairment with special emphasis on differences between demented and non-demented PD patients. (author) 3 figs., 2 refs

Analysis of neural mechanisms underlying verbal fluency in cytoarchitectonically defined stereotaxic space--the roles of Brodmann areas 44 and 45.

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Amunts, Katrin; Weiss, Peter H; Mohlberg, Hartmut; Pieperhoff, Peter; Eickhoff, Simon; Gurd, Jennifer M; Marshall, John C; Shah, Nadim J; Fink, Gereon R; Zilles, Karl

2004-05-01

We investigated neural activations underlying a verbal fluency task and cytoarchitectonic probabilistic maps of Broca's speech region (Brodmann's areas 44 and 45). To do so, we reanalyzed data from a previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) [Brain 125 (2002) 1024] and from a cytoarchitectonic study [J. Comp. Neurol. 412 (1999) 319] and developed a method to combine both data sets. In the fMRI experiment, verbal fluency was investigated in 11 healthy volunteers, who covertly produced words from predefined categories. A factorial design was used with factors verbal class (semantic vs. overlearned fluency) and switching between categories (no vs. yes). fMRI data analysis employed SPM99 (Statistical Parametric Mapping). Cytoarchitectonic maps of areas 44 and 45 were derived from histologic sections of 10 postmortem brains. Both the in vivo fMRI and postmortem MR data were warped to a common reference brain using a new elastic warping tool. Cytoarchitectonic probability maps with stereotaxic information about intersubject variability were calculated for both areas and superimposed on the functional data, which showed the involvement of left hemisphere areas with verbal fluency relative to the baseline. Semantic relative to overlearned fluency showed greater involvement of left area 45 than of 44. Thus, although both areas participate in verbal fluency, they do so differentially. Left area 45 is more involved in semantic aspects of language processing, while area 44 is probably involved in high-level aspects of programming speech production per se. The combination of functional data analysis with a new elastic warping tool and cytoarchitectonic maps opens new perspectives for analyzing the cortical networks involved in language.

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy reveals altered hemispheric laterality in relation to schizotypy during verbal fluency task.

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Hori, Hiroaki; Ozeki, Yuji; Terada, Sumio; Kunugi, Hiroshi

2008-12-12

Previous functional neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that patients with schizophrenia and those with schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) show reduced laterality, or relative right hemispheric dominance, during the performance of cognitive activation tasks; however, neuroimaging studies looking at non-clinical schizotypy have been few. We have recently reported that schizotypal traits at a non-clinical level are associated with right prefrontal dominance during a letter version of the verbal fluency task (VFT), but it is unknown whether such relationship between schizotypy and functional laterality would be observed across various cognitive tasks. Here we examined the relationships of schizotypal traits as measured by the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ) in healthy adults with hemispheric lateralization of prefrontal activation during letter and category VFTs, using near-infrared spectroscopy. Thirty-two participants were divided into high- (n=16) and low- (n=16) SPQ groups by the median split of the total SPQ score. The high-SPQ group, but not low-SPQ group, showed significantly right-greater-than-left asymmetry of prefrontal activation during letter VFT, whereas such pronounced hemispheric asymmetry in relation to schizotypy was not found during category VFT. These results indicate that non-clinical schizotypy is related to right prefrontal preference during the letter version of VFT in particular, suggesting that the association between schizotypal traits and functional laterality may vary depending on cognitive activation tasks.

Semantic, phonologic, and verb fluency in Huntington's disease

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Mariana Jardim Azambuja

Full Text Available Abstract Verbal fluency tasks have been identified as important indicators of executive functioning impairment in patients with frontal lobe dysfunction. Although the usual evaluation of this ability considers phonologic and semantic criteria, there is some evidence that fluency of verbs would be more sensitive in disclosing frontostriatal physiopathology since frontal regions primarily mediate retrieval of verbs. Huntington's disease usually affects these circuitries. Objective: To compare three types of verbal fluency task in the assessment of frontal-striatal dysfunction in HD subjects. Methods: We studied 26 Huntington's disease subjects, divided into two subgroups: mild (11 and moderate (15 along with 26 normal volunteers matched for age, gender and schooling, for three types of verbal fluency: phonologic fluency (F-A-S, semantic fluency and fluency of verbs. Results: Huntington's disease subjects showed a significant reduction in the number of words correctly generated in the three tasks when compared to the normal group. Both controls and Huntington's disease subjects showed a similar pattern of decreasing task performance with the greatest number of words being generated by semantic elicitation followed by verbs and lastly phonologic criteria. We did not find greater production of verbs compared with F-A-S and semantic conditions. Moreover, the fluency of verbs distinguished only the moderate group from controls. Conclusion: Our results indicated that phonologic and semantic fluency can be used to evaluate executive functioning, proving more sensitive than verb fluency. However, it is important to point out that the diverse presentations of Huntington's disease means that an extended sample is necessary for more consistent analysis of this issue.

Effects of literacy on semantic verbal fluency in an immigrant population

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Nielsen, T. Rune; Waldemar, Gunhild

2016-01-01

OBJECTIVE: A significant impact of limited schooling and illiteracy has been found on numerous neuropsychological tests, which may partly be due to the ecological relevance of the tests in the context of illiteracy. The aims of this study were to compare the performance of illiterate and literate...... and acculturation score did not affect this interaction effect. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, our results are in line with previous studies comparing semantic fluency in illiterate and literate individuals. The results lend further support to the strong associations between literacy, semantic verbal fluency performance...... immigrants on two semantic criteria for the verbal fluency test, and examine the influence of acculturation on test performances. METHOD: Performances of 20 cognitively unimpaired illiterate and 21 literate Turkish immigrants aged ≥50 years were compared on an animal and supermarket criterion...

Cognitive correlates of verbal memory and verbal fluency in schizophrenia, and differential effects of various clinical symptoms between male and female patients.

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Brébion, Gildas; Villalta-Gil, Victoria; Autonell, Jaume; Cervilla, Jorge; Dolz, Montserrat; Foix, Alexandrina; Haro, Josep Maria; Usall, Judith; Vilaplana, Miriam; Ochoa, Susana

2013-06-01

Impairment of higher cognitive functions in patients with schizophrenia might stem from perturbation of more basic functions, such as processing speed. Various clinical symptoms might affect cognitive efficiency as well. Notably, previous research has revealed the role of affective symptoms on memory performance in this population, and suggested sex-specific effects. We conducted a post-hoc analysis of an extensive neuropsychological study of 88 patients with schizophrenia. Regression analyses were conducted on verbal memory and verbal fluency data to investigate the contribution of semantic organisation and processing speed to performance. The role of negative and affective symptoms and of attention disorders in verbal memory and verbal fluency was investigated separately in male and female patients. Semantic clustering contributed to verbal recall, and a measure of reading speed contributed to verbal recall as well as to phonological and semantic fluency. Negative symptoms affected verbal recall and verbal fluency in the male patients, whereas attention disorders affected these abilities in the female patients. Furthermore, depression affected verbal recall in women, whereas anxiety affected it in men. These results confirm the association of processing speed with cognitive efficiency in patients with schizophrenia. They also confirm the previously observed sex-specific associations of depression and anxiety with memory performance in these patients, and suggest that negative symptoms and attention disorders likewise are related to cognitive efficiency differently in men and women. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Phonological fluency strategy of switching differentiates relapsing-remitting and secondary progressive multiple sclerosis patients.

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Messinis, L; Kosmidis, M H; Vlahou, C; Malegiannaki, A C; Gatzounis, G; Dimisianos, N; Karra, A; Kiosseoglou, G; Gourzis, P; Papathanasopoulos, P

2013-01-01

The strategies used to perform a verbal fluency task appear to be reflective of cognitive abilities necessary for successful daily functioning. In the present study, we explored potential differences in verbal fluency strategies (switching and clustering) used to maximize word production by patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) versus patients with secondary progressive multiple sclerosis (SPMS). We further assessed impairment rates and potential differences in the sensitivity and specificity of phonological versus semantic verbal fluency tasks in discriminating between those with a diagnosis of MS and healthy adults. We found that the overall rate of impaired verbal fluency in our MS sample was consistent with that in other studies. However, we found no differences between types of MS (SPMS, RRMS), on semantic or phonological fluency word production, or the strategies used to maximize semantic fluency. In contrast, we found that the number of switches differed significantly in the phonological fluency task between the SPMS and RRMS subtypes. The clinical utility of semantic versus phonological fluency in discriminating MS patients from healthy controls did not indicate any significant differences. Further, the strategies used to maximize performance did not differentiate MS subgroups or MS patients from healthy controls.

Motor skills and verbal fluency in HIV positive older adults in Rural ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The Finger Tapping Test of the Developmental Neuropsychological Test Battery was also used. Results: Tests of motor skill were less sensitive to HIV infection (F (1, 48) = 1.134, p= .292) than verbal fluency tests-Hopkins Verbal Learning (F (1, 48) = 42.994, p=.000, Hopkins Verbal Learning Test- delay (F (1, 48) = 45.886, ...

The absoluteness of semantic processing: lessons from the analysis of temporal clusters in phonemic verbal fluency.

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Isabelle Vonberg

Full Text Available For word production, we may consciously pursue semantic or phonological search strategies, but it is uncertain whether we can retrieve the different aspects of lexical information independently from each other. We therefore studied the spread of semantic information into words produced under exclusively phonemic task demands.42 subjects participated in a letter verbal fluency task, demanding the production of as many s-words as possible in two minutes. Based on curve fittings for the time courses of word production, output spurts (temporal clusters considered to reflect rapid lexical retrieval based on automatic activation spread, were identified. Semantic and phonemic word relatedness within versus between these clusters was assessed by respective scores (0 meaning no relation, 4 maximum relation.Subjects produced 27.5 (±9.4 words belonging to 6.7 (±2.4 clusters. Both phonemically and semantically words were more related within clusters than between clusters (phon: 0.33±0.22 vs. 0.19±0.17, p<.01; sem: 0.65±0.29 vs. 0.37±0.29, p<.01. Whereas the extent of phonemic relatedness correlated with high task performance, the contrary was the case for the extent of semantic relatedness.The results indicate that semantic information spread occurs, even if the consciously pursued word search strategy is purely phonological. This, together with the negative correlation between semantic relatedness and verbal output suits the idea of a semantic default mode of lexical search, acting against rapid task performance in the given scenario of phonemic verbal fluency. The simultaneity of enhanced semantic and phonemic word relatedness within the same temporal cluster boundaries suggests an interaction between content and sound-related information whenever a new semantic field has been opened.

Sex differences in verbal fluency during adolescence: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study in gender dysphoric and control boys and girls

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Soleman, Remi S.; Schagen, Sebastian E. E.; Veltman, Dick J.; Kreukels, Baudewijntje P. C.; Cohen-Kettenis, Peggy T.; Lambalk, Cornelis B.; Wouters, Femke; Delemarre-van de Waal, Henriette A.

2013-01-01

In the literature, verbal fluency (VF) is generally described as a female-favoring task. Although it is conceivable that this sex difference only evolves during adolescence or adulthood under influence of sex steroids, this has never been investigated in young adolescents. First, to assess sex

On Which Abilities Are Category Fluency and Letter Fluency Grounded A Confirmatory Factor Analysis of 53 Alzheimer's Dementia Patients

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Ilaria Bizzozero

2013-05-01

Full Text Available Background/Aims: In Alzheimer's dementia (AD, letter fluency is less impaired than category fluency. To check whether category fluency and letter fluency depend differently on semantics and attention, 53 mild AD patients were given animal and letter fluency tasks, two semantic tests (the Verbal Semantic Questionnaire and the BORB Association Match test, and two attentional tests (the Stroop Colour-Word Interference test and the Digit Cancellation test. Methods: We conducted a LISREL confirmatory factor analysis to check the extent to which category fluency and letter fluency tasks were related to semantics and attention, viewed as latent variables. Results: Both types of fluency tasks were related to the latent variable Semantics but not to the latent variable Attention. Conclusions: Our findings warn against interpreting the disproportionate impairment of AD patients on category and letter fluency as a contrast between semantics and attention.

Recall strategies for the verbal fluency test in patients with multiple sclerosis.

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Velázquez-Cardoso, J; Marosi-Holczberger, E; Rodríguez-Agudelo, Y; Yañez-Tellez, G; Chávez-Oliveros, M

2014-04-01

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a neurodegenerative disease characterised by inflammation and demyelination. It generates irreversible myelin changes, which in turn give rise to physical and cognitive disorders. The verbal fluency test (VF) has been shown to be a sensitive tool for detecting cognitive impairment in these patients. To compare quantitative and qualitative aspects of performance on semantic and phonological fluency tests between MS patients and healthy controls by analysing total words produced and strategies used (clusters and switching). We evaluated 46 patients with MS and 33 healthy controls using the VF test. The semantic VF task revealed no significant differences between groups; for the phonological task, patients demonstrated reduced word production (F [77]=2.286 P<.001) and poorer use of grouping strategies, resulting in more frequent switching (F [77]=3.808 P<.005). These results support using qualitative analysis for recall strategies, since the technique provides data about which components of the task are affected by brain damage. Clusters depend on the integrity of semantic memory, while switching has to do with developing effective search strategies, cognitive flexibility, and the ability to modify responses. Frontal lobe damage has been reported in MS, and this is consistent with results from the phonological VF test. Copyright © 2012 Sociedad Española de Neurología. Published by Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.

Neural correlates of rhyming vs. lexical and semantic fluency.

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Kircher, Tilo; Nagels, Arne; Kirner-Veselinovic, André; Krach, Sören

2011-05-19

Rhyming words, as in songs or poems, is a universal feature of human language across all ages. In the present fMRI study a novel overt rhyming task was applied to determine the neural correlates of rhyme production. Fifteen right-handed healthy male volunteers participated in this verbal fluency study. Participants were instructed to overtly articulate as many words as possible either to a given initial letter (LVF) or to a semantic category (SVF). During the rhyming verbal fluency task (RVF), participants had to generate words that rhymed with pseudoword stimuli. On-line overt verbal responses were audiotaped in order to correct the imaging results for the number of generated words. Fewer words were generated in the rhyming compared to both the lexical and the semantic condition. On a neural level, all language tasks activated a language network encompassing the left inferior frontal gyrus, the middle and superior temporal gyri as well as the contralateral right cerebellum. Rhyming verbal fluency compared to both lexical and semantic verbal fluency demonstrated significantly stronger activation of left inferior parietal region. Generating novel rhyme words seems to be mainly mediated by the left inferior parietal lobe, a region previously found to be associated with meta-phonological as well as sub-lexical linguistic processes. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Verbal fluency in male and female schizophrenia patients: Different patterns of association with processing speed, working memory span, and clinical symptoms.

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Brébion, Gildas; Stephan-Otto, Christian; Ochoa, Susana; Nieto, Lourdes; Contel, Montserrat; Usall, Judith

2018-01-01

Decreased processing speed in schizophrenia patients has been identified as a major impairment factor in various neuropsychological domains. Working memory span has been found to be involved in several deep or effortful cognitive processes. We investigated the impact that these 2 cognitive functions may have on phonological and semantic fluency in schizophrenia patients and healthy participants. Fifty-five patients with schizophrenia and 60 healthy participants were administered a neuropsychological battery including phonological and semantic fluency, working memory, and cognitive and motor speed. Regression analyses revealed that motor speed was related to phonological fluency in female patients, whereas cognitive speed was related to semantic fluency in male patients. In addition, working memory span was related to verbal fluency in women from both the patient and the healthy control groups. Decreased processing speed, but not decreased working memory span, accounted for the verbal fluency deficit in patients. Verbal fluency was inversely related to attention deficit in female patients and to negative symptoms in male patients. Decreased processing speed may be the main factor in verbal fluency impairment of patients. Further, the cognitive and clinical predictors of verbal fluency efficiency are different in men and women. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Quantitative and qualitative analysis of semantic verbal fluency in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy.

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Jaimes-Bautista, A G; Rodríguez-Camacho, M; Martínez-Juárez, I E; Rodríguez-Agudelo, Y

2017-08-29

Patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) perform poorly on semantic verbal fluency (SVF) tasks. Completing these tasks successfully involves multiple cognitive processes simultaneously. Therefore, quantitative analysis of SVF (number of correct words in one minute), conducted in most studies, has been found to be insufficient to identify cognitive dysfunction underlying SVF difficulties in TLE. To determine whether a sample of patients with TLE had SVF difficulties compared with a control group (CG), and to identify the cognitive components associated with SVF difficulties using quantitative and qualitative analysis. SVF was evaluated in 25 patients with TLE and 24 healthy controls; the semantic verbal fluency test included 5 semantic categories: animals, fruits, occupations, countries, and verbs. All 5 categories were analysed quantitatively (number of correct words per minute and interval of execution: 0-15, 16-30, 31-45, and 46-60seconds); the categories animals and fruits were also analysed qualitatively (clusters, cluster size, switches, perseverations, and intrusions). Patients generated fewer words for all categories and intervals and fewer clusters and switches for animals and fruits than the CG (Psize and number of intrusions and perseverations (P>.05). Our results suggest an association between SVF difficulties in TLE and difficulty activating semantic networks, impaired strategic search, and poor cognitive flexibility. Attention, inhibition, and working memory are preserved in these patients. Copyright © 2017 Sociedad Española de Neurología. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

Subjective memory complaints and their relation with verbal fluency in active older people.

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Bernardes, Flavia Rodrigues; Machado, Camila Kretzer; Souza, Monique Coan; Machado, Marcos José; Belaunde, Aline Megumi Arakawa

2017-05-22

To verify subjective memory complaints and their relation to verbal fluency in older people participating in community groups. An epidemiological quantitative study performed in community groups for older people in Florianópolis, state of Santa Catarina, Brazil. Data were collected by structured interview using the Memory Complaint Questionnaire (MAC-Q) and the Verbal Fluency Test (VFT) by semantic categories "animals/minute". For an inferential descriptive analysis, data with p people in question and added to the questionnaire). We found no relation between subjective memory complaints and verbal fluency of active older people. Mnemonic complaints were correlated to the negative perception of memory and to the duration of the complaint. However, subjective memory complaints were an indicator for those individuals with negative perception of memory, being one aspect that must be considered in older people's speech when investigating a possible cognitive deterioration. Such data can assist in formulating public health care policies aimed at older people in the city, which emphasizes the importance of verifying subjective memory complaints in this population.

Linguistic and Cultural Factors Associated with Phonemic Fluency Performance in Bilingual Hispanics

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Bennett, Jennifer

2012-01-01

Verbal fluency tasks are used extensively in clinical settings because of their sensitivity to a wide variety of disorders, including cognitive decline and dementia, and their usefulness in differential diagnoses. However, the effects of bilingualism on neuropsychological assessment, and verbal fluency in particular, are currently not completely…

Predicting factors of verbal fluency and the effects of stereotype threat and boost

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2015-09-01

Full Text Available Aims: Verbal Fluency (VF tasks are often utilised to assist in the neuropsychological assessment of cognitive impairment and diagnosis of cognitive disorders. VF performance can also provide information about an individual’s vocabulary and speed of cognitive processes. In order to further develop our understanding of predictors of VF, this study explored how age, education and time spent reading and writing can affect performance. Furthermore, this study investigated the effects of a stereotype threat (STT or boost (STB. Method: VF tasks (pre and post stereotype manipulation were administrated to 30 adults with 15 receiving a STT and 15 receiving a STB. The stereotype threat/boost was activated by informing participants that they read and wrote less/more than their peers. Results: Medium to strong positive correlations (with some being significant were found between education level and both the number of words generated and with word commonality scores (i.e. how common the words were for these participants. Negative medium to weak correlations were found between age and both the number of words generated and with commonality scores. There was also a significant interaction showing that the words generated by a category prompt were less common following a STB and more common following a STT. Conclusions: These results support those of previous literature in regards to the respective impacts of education and age on VF. Furthermore, the impacts found of age and education on the commonality of words generated provides information on the nature of their influences. Lastly, the present study sheds light on the potential effects of STT and STB on verbal fluency.

Schizotypal traits in healthy women predict prefrontal activation patterns during a verbal fluency task: a near-infrared spectroscopy study.

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Hori, Hiroaki; Nagamine, Mitsue; Soshi, Takahiro; Okabe, Shigeo; Kim, Yoshiharu; Kunugi, Hiroshi

2008-01-01

Previous functional neuroimaging studies have reported that patients with schizophrenia show reduced prefrontal activation during cognitive tasks whereas patients with schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) show preserved or even increased right prefrontal activation, compared to healthy controls; on the other hand, reduced hemispheric laterality is considered to be common to these two disorders. The aim of this study was to examine the possible association between schizotypal traits at a nonclinical level and prefrontal activation patterns during a letter version of the verbal fluency task (VFT). We examined the relationships of schizotypal traits as measured by the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ) in a nonclinical female population with prefrontal activation patterns during the VFT, using near-infrared spectroscopy. Twenty-seven healthy participants were divided into high (n = 14) and low (n = 13) SPQ groups by the median split of the total SPQ score. Compared to the low SPQ group, the high SPQ group showed significantly larger right prefrontal activation during the performance of the VFT, leading to more bilateral activation. Our results suggest that schizotypal traits at a nonclinical level may be related to relative right prefrontal laterality with overall prefrontal activation being preserved, consistent with previous findings obtained by studies of patients with SPD. 2008 S. Karger AG, Basel.

A Preliminary fMRI Study of a Novel Self-Paced Written Fluency Task: Observation of Left-Hemispheric Activation, and Increased Frontal Activation in Late vs. Early Task Phases

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Laleh eGolestanirad

2015-03-01

Full Text Available Neuropsychological tests of verbal fluency are very widely used to characterize impaired cognitive function. For clinical neuroscience studies and potential medical applications, measuring the brain activity that underlies such tests with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI is of significant interest - but a challenging proposition because overt speech can cause signal artifacts, which tend to worsen as the duration of speech tasks becomes longer. In a novel approach, we present the group brain activity of 12 subjects who performed a self-paced written version of phonemic fluency using fMRI-compatible tablet technology that recorded responses and provided task-related feedback on a projection screen display, over long-duration task blocks (60 s. As predicted, we observed robust activation in the left anterior inferior and medial frontal gyri, consisting with previously reported results of verbal fluency tasks which established the role of these areas in strategic word retrieval. In addition, the number of words produced in the late phase (last 30 s of written phonemic fluency was significantly less (p < 0.05 than the number produced in the early phase (first 30 s. Activation during the late phase vs. the early phase was also assessed from the first 20 s and last 20 s of task performance, which eliminated the possibility that the sluggish hemodynamic response from the early phase would affect the activation estimates of the late phase. The last 20 s produced greater activation maps covering extended areas in bilateral precuneus, cuneus, middle temporal gyrus, insula, middle frontal gyrus and cingulate gyrus. Among them, greater activation was observed in the bilateral middle frontal gyrus (Brodmann area BA 9 and cingulate gyrus (BA 24, 32 likely as part of the initiation, maintenance, and shifting of attentional resources.

Fluência verbal e variáveis sociodemográficas no processo de envelhecimento: um estudo epidemiológico Verbal fluency and sociodemographic variables in the aging process: an epidemiological study

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Thaís Bento Lima da Silva

2011-01-01

Full Text Available A fluência verbal é um marcador das funções executivas, envolvendo a capacidade de busca e recuperação de dados, habilidades de organização, autorregulação e memória operacional. Objetivou-se identificar a existência de diferenças em fluência verbal (número de animais, categorias, grupos e alternância de categorias entre sexo, faixas etárias, faixas de escolaridade e renda. Trezentos e oitenta e três idosos (60 anos ou mais participaram de estudo epidemiológico de corte transversal. Foram aplicadas questões sociodemográficas e o teste de fluência verbal categoria animais. As variáveis do teste de fluência verbal foram influenciadas por sexo, idade e escolaridade, com melhor desempenho a favor dos homens, dos participantes mais jovens e mais escolarizados. Os resultados confirmam que o desempenho em fluência verbal deve ser interpretado à luz das informações sociodemográficas.Verbal fluency is a marker of executive functions which involves the ability of searching and retrieving information, organizational skills, self-regulation and working memory. The objective of this paper was to identify differences in verbal fluency (number of animals, categories, clusters and category switching associated with gender, age, education and income. Three hundred eighty three elderly (60 or older participated in an epidemiological cross-sectional study. Participants answered sociodemographic questions and completed the verbal fluency animal category test. Verbal fluency variables were influenced by gender, age, and education. Higher performance was reported for men and participants with lower age and higher education. Results confirm that performance in verbal fluency must be interpreted in the light of sociodemographic information.

Designing and standardization of Persian version of verbal fluency test among Iranian bilingual (Turkish-Persian adolescents

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Ayyoub Malek

2013-08-01

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: The present study aims to design and standardize the verbal fluency test (VFT among bilingual (Turkish-Persian adolescents in Tabriz, Iran. METHODS: In the designing stage, 190 adolescents who were already selected randomly from among the guidance and high school students in Tabriz were classified into three age groups (11-12, 13-15, 16-18. The screening test including 33 Persian letters and three ‘animal’, ‘fruit’, and ‘supermarket stuff’ categories, and SDQ was administered to them. The results were the three letters ‘M’, ‘D’, and ‘B’ for phonological fluency, and two ‘animal’ and ‘supermarket stuff’ categories for semantic fluency in the Persian language. In the standardization stage, the letters and categories specified in the designing stage were administered in the same order to 302 adolescents. Moreover, 28 adolescents diagnosed with ADHD were selected to estimate the discriminant validity of VFT. RESULTS: Pearson correlation coefficient between test-retest of the three letters ‘M’, ‘D’, and ‘B’ for phonological fluency were estimated at 0.67, 0.66, and 0.75, respectively. Furthermore, for the two categories of ‘animal’ and ‘supermarket stuff’ it was estimated to be 0.80 and 0.65, respectively. All these amounts were significant (P < 0.01. The discriminant validity, which was estimated through comparison between the scores of normal and ADHD adolescents, showed that the obtained t value for all indices except for the letter ‘B’ was meaningful. The results of MANOVA between two gender groups were significant at P < 0.05 for three ‘M’, ‘D’, and ‘B’ variables of verbal fluency and ‘animal’ semantic fluency. In both verbal and semantic fluency the mean of subjects’ performance scores showed that females outperformed males. CONCLUSIONS: The findings of the current study indicated that VFT is reliable in the studied sample group, and has a valid psychometric

Phonological Fluency Strategy of Switching Differentiates Relapsing-Remitting and Secondary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis Patients

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Messinis, L.; Kosmidis, M. H.; Vlahou, C.; Malegiannaki, A. C.; Gatzounis, G.; Dimisianos, N.; Karra, A.; Kiosseoglou, G.; Gourzis, P.; Papathanasopoulos, P.

2013-01-01

The strategies used to perform a verbal fluency task appear to be reflective of cognitive abilities necessary for successful daily functioning. In the present study, we explored potential differences in verbal fluency strategies (switching and clustering) used to maximize word production by patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) versus patients with secondary progressive multiple sclerosis (SPMS). We further assessed impairment rates and potential differences in the sensi...

Category verbal fluency performance may be impaired in amnestic mild cognitive impairment

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Márcio Luiz Figueredo Balthazar

Full Text Available Abstract To study category verbal fluency (VF for animals in patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI, mild Alzheimer disease (AD and normal controls. Method: Fifteen mild AD, 15 aMCI, and 15 normal control subjects were included. Diagnosis of AD was based on DSM-IV and NINCDS-ADRDA criteria, while aMCI was based on the criteria of the International Working Group on Mild Cognitive Impairment, using CDR 0.5 for aMCI and CDR 1 for mild AD. All subjects underwent testing of category VF for animals, lexical semantic function (Boston Naming-BNT, CAMCOG Similarities item, WAIS-R forward and backward digit span, Rey Auditory Verbal Learning (RAVLT, Mini-Mental Status Examination (MMSE, and other task relevant functions such as visual perception, attention, and mood state (with Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia. Data analysis used ANOVA and a post-hoc Tukey test for intergroup comparisons, and Pearson's coefficient for correlations of memory and FV tests with other task relevant functions (statistical significance level was p<0.05. Results: aMCI patients had lower performance than controls on category VF for animals and on the backward digit span subtest of WAIS-R but higher scores compared with mild AD patients. Mild AD patients scored significantly worse than aMCI and controls across all tests. Conclusion: aMCI patients may have poor performance in some non-memory tests, specifically category VF for animals in our study, where this could be attributable to the influence of working memory.

Verbal and visual divergent thinking in aging.

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Palmiero, Massimiliano; Nori, Raffaella; Piccardi, Laura

2017-04-01

According to the peak and decline model divergent thinking declines at a specific age (in or after middle age). However, if divergent thinking declines steadily in aging still has to be clarified. In order to explore the age-related changes in verbal and visual divergent thinking, in the present study a sample of 159 participants was divided in five age groups: young adults (18-35 years), middle-aged adults (36-55), young old (56-74), old (75-85) and the oldest-old (86-98). Two divergent thinking tasks were administered: the alternative uses for cardboard boxes, aimed at assessing verbal ideational fluency, flexibility and originality; the completion drawing task, aimed at assessing visual ideational fluency, flexibility and originality. Results showed that after peaking in the young adult group (20-35 years) all components of verbal and visual divergent thinking stabilized in the middle-aged adult group (36-55 years) and then started declining in the young old group (56-75). Interestingly, all components were found to be preserved after declining. Yet, verbal and visual divergent thinking were found at the same extent across age groups, with the exception of visual ideational fluency, that was higher in the young old group, the old group and the oldest-old group than verbal ideational fluency. These results support the idea that divergent thinking does not decline steadily in the elderly. Given that older people can preserve to some extent verbal and visual divergent thinking, these findings have important implications for active aging, that is, divergent thinking might be fostered in aging in order to prevent the cognitive decline.

The effect of the COMT val(158)met polymorphism on neural correlates of semantic verbal fluency.

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Krug, Axel; Markov, Valentin; Sheldrick, Abigail; Krach, Sören; Jansen, Andreas; Zerres, Klaus; Eggermann, Thomas; Stöcker, Tony; Shah, N Jon; Kircher, Tilo

2009-12-01

Variation in the val(158)met polymorphism of the COMT gene has been found to be associated with cognitive performance. In functional neuroimaging studies, this dysfunction has been linked to signal changes in prefrontal areas. Given the complex modulation and functional heterogeneity of frontal lobe systems, further specification of COMT gene-related phenotypes differing in prefrontally mediated cognitive performance are of major interest. Eighty healthy individuals (54 men, 26 women; mean age 23.3 years) performed an overt semantic verbal fluency task while brain activation was measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). COMT val(158)met genotype was determined and correlated with brain activation measured with fMRI during the task. Although there were no differences in performance, brain activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus [Brodmann area 10] was positively correlated with the number of val alleles in the COMT gene. COMT val(158)met status modulates brain activation during the language production on a semantic level in an area related to executive functions.

Verbal fluency as a prefrontal activation probe: a validation study using 99mTc-ECD brain SPET

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Audenaert, K.; Brans, B.; Laere, K. van; Versijpt, J.; Dierckx, R.; Lahorte, P.; Heeringen, K. van

2000-01-01

This study aimed to investigate the feasibility of brain single-photon emission tomography (SPET) in the letter and category fluency paradigm of the Controlled Oral Word Association (COWA) test in healthy volunteers. Two groups each comprising ten right-handed healthy volunteers were injected twice with 370 MBq technetium-99m ethyl cysteinate dimer following a split-dose paradigm (resting and activation condition). Statistical parametric mapping (SPM96) was used to determine voxelwise significant changes. The letter fluency and the category fluency activation paradigm had a differential brain activation pattern. The posterior part of the left inferior prefrontal cortex (LIPC) was activated in both paradigms, with the category fluency task having an extra activation in the anterior LIPC. In the category fluency task, but not the letter fluency task, an activation in the right inferior prefrontal cortex was found. These findings confirm to a large extent the results of previous functional magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography studies in semantic and phonological activation paradigms. The choice and validity of various methodological characteristics of the experimental design leading to these results are critically discussed. It is concluded that brain SPET activation with the letter fluency and category fluency paradigm under standard neuropsychological conditions in healthy volunteers is both technically and practically feasible. (orig.)

Speech fluency profile on different tasks for individuals with Parkinson's disease.

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Juste, Fabiola Staróbole; Andrade, Claudia Regina Furquim de

2017-07-20

To characterize the speech fluency profile of patients with Parkinson's disease. Study participants were 40 individuals of both genders aged 40 to 80 years divided into 2 groups: Research Group - RG (20 individuals with diagnosis of Parkinson's disease) and Control Group - CG (20 individuals with no communication or neurological disorders). For all of the participants, three speech samples involving different tasks were collected: monologue, individual reading, and automatic speech. The RG presented a significant larger number of speech disruptions, both stuttering-like and typical dysfluencies, and higher percentage of speech discontinuity in the monologue and individual reading tasks compared with the CG. Both groups presented reduced number of speech disruptions (stuttering-like and typical dysfluencies) in the automatic speech task; the groups presented similar performance in this task. Regarding speech rate, individuals in the RG presented lower number of words and syllables per minute compared with those in the CG in all speech tasks. Participants of the RG presented altered parameters of speech fluency compared with those of the CG; however, this change in fluency cannot be considered a stuttering disorder.

Verbal fluency as a prefrontal activation probe: a validation study using {sup 99m}Tc-ECD brain SPET

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Audenaert, K. [Department of Nuclear Medicine, Ghent University Hospital (Belgium); Department of Psychiatry and Medical Psychology, Ghent University Hospital and Ghent University (Belgium); Brans, B.; Laere, K. van; Versijpt, J.; Dierckx, R. [Department of Nuclear Medicine, Ghent University Hospital (Belgium); Lahorte, P. [Department of Nuclear Medicine, Ghent University Hospital (Belgium); Laboratory of Subatomic and Radiation Physics, Ghent University (Belgium); Heeringen, K. van [Department of Psychiatry and Medical Psychology, Ghent University Hospital and Ghent University (Belgium)

2000-12-01

This study aimed to investigate the feasibility of brain single-photon emission tomography (SPET) in the letter and category fluency paradigm of the Controlled Oral Word Association (COWA) test in healthy volunteers. Two groups each comprising ten right-handed healthy volunteers were injected twice with 370 MBq technetium-99m ethyl cysteinate dimer following a split-dose paradigm (resting and activation condition). Statistical parametric mapping (SPM96) was used to determine voxelwise significant changes. The letter fluency and the category fluency activation paradigm had a differential brain activation pattern. The posterior part of the left inferior prefrontal cortex (LIPC) was activated in both paradigms, with the category fluency task having an extra activation in the anterior LIPC. In the category fluency task, but not the letter fluency task, an activation in the right inferior prefrontal cortex was found. These findings confirm to a large extent the results of previous functional magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography studies in semantic and phonological activation paradigms. The choice and validity of various methodological characteristics of the experimental design leading to these results are critically discussed. It is concluded that brain SPET activation with the letter fluency and category fluency paradigm under standard neuropsychological conditions in healthy volunteers is both technically and practically feasible. (orig.)

Neurophysiological Modulations of Non-Verbal and Verbal Dual-Tasks Interference during Word Planning.

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Raphaël Fargier

Full Text Available Running a concurrent task while speaking clearly interferes with speech planning, but whether verbal vs. non-verbal tasks interfere with the same processes is virtually unknown. We investigated the neural dynamics of dual-task interference on word production using event-related potentials (ERPs with either tones or syllables as concurrent stimuli. Participants produced words from pictures in three conditions: without distractors, while passively listening to distractors and during a distractor detection task. Production latencies increased for tasks with higher attentional demand and were longer for syllables relative to tones. ERP analyses revealed common modulations by dual-task for verbal and non-verbal stimuli around 240 ms, likely corresponding to lexical selection. Modulations starting around 350 ms prior to vocal onset were only observed when verbal stimuli were involved. These later modulations, likely reflecting interference with phonological-phonetic encoding, were observed only when overlap between tasks was maximal and the same underlying neural circuits were engaged (cross-talk.

Neurophysiological Modulations of Non-Verbal and Verbal Dual-Tasks Interference during Word Planning.

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Fargier, Raphaël; Laganaro, Marina

2016-01-01

Running a concurrent task while speaking clearly interferes with speech planning, but whether verbal vs. non-verbal tasks interfere with the same processes is virtually unknown. We investigated the neural dynamics of dual-task interference on word production using event-related potentials (ERPs) with either tones or syllables as concurrent stimuli. Participants produced words from pictures in three conditions: without distractors, while passively listening to distractors and during a distractor detection task. Production latencies increased for tasks with higher attentional demand and were longer for syllables relative to tones. ERP analyses revealed common modulations by dual-task for verbal and non-verbal stimuli around 240 ms, likely corresponding to lexical selection. Modulations starting around 350 ms prior to vocal onset were only observed when verbal stimuli were involved. These later modulations, likely reflecting interference with phonological-phonetic encoding, were observed only when overlap between tasks was maximal and the same underlying neural circuits were engaged (cross-talk).

What is measured with verbal fluency tests in Parkinson's disease patients at different stages of the disease?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Koerts, Janneke; Meijer, Hester A.; Colman, Katrien S. F.; Tucha, Lara; Lange, Klaus W.; Tucha, Oliver

Verbal fluency tests (VFT) are often used to assess executive functioning in Parkinson's disease (PD). Various cognitive functions may, however, impair performance on VFT. Furthermore, since PD is a progressive neurodegenerative disease, it is also not clear whether deficits on VFT reflect

Voice and Fluency Changes as a Function of Speech Task and Deep Brain Stimulation

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Van Lancker Sidtis, Diana; Rogers, Tiffany; Godier, Violette; Tagliati, Michele; Sidtis, John J.

2010-01-01

Purpose: Speaking, which naturally occurs in different modes or "tasks" such as conversation and repetition, relies on intact basal ganglia nuclei. Recent studies suggest that voice and fluency parameters are differentially affected by speech task. In this study, the authors examine the effects of subcortical functionality on voice and fluency,…

On the (elusive) role of oral motor-movements in fluency-based memory illusions.

Science.gov (United States)

Westerman, Deanne L; Klin, Celia M; Lanska, Meredith

2015-07-01

It is well established that the ease with which a stimulus is processed affects many different types of evaluative judgments. Recently, it has been proposed that for verbal stimuli the effect of fluency on such judgments is mediated by the muscles that are involved in speech (Topolinski & Strack, 2009, 2010). Evidence for this claim can be found in studies that have shown that fluency effects are eliminated if such judgments are made while these muscles are otherwise engaged (such as while chewing gum or eating). Additional research has found that oral-motor tasks block familiarity-based responding on recognition memory tasks (Topolinski, 2012). The current study investigated the effect of an oral-motor task on recognition memory. Of particular interest was whether the fluency-blocking effects of an oral-motor task would extend to fluency-based illusions of recognition memory. Although we found robust fluency-based illusions of familiarity, we did not find that the effects were modulated by the nature of the concurrent task (gum-chewing vs. a manual-motor task). Moreover, we found no evidence that oral-motor tasks affected recognition more generally, nor did we find that an oral-motor task modulated affective ratings to repeated stimuli. We were also unable to replicate the finding that an oral-motor task blocks the false fame effect (Topolinski & Strack, 2010). These results call into question the assertion that oral-motor movements mediate fluency effects in recognition memory and other evaluative judgments. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved.

The similar effects of verbal and non-verbal intervening tasks on word recall in an elderly population.

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Williams, B R; Sullivan, S K; Morra, L F; Williams, J R; Donovick, P J

2014-01-01

Vulnerability to retroactive interference has been shown to increase with cognitive aging. Consistent with the findings of memory and aging literature, the authors of the California Verbal Learning Test-II (CVLT-II) suggest that a non-verbal task be administered during the test's delay interval to minimize the effects of retroactive interference on delayed recall. The goal of the present study was to determine the extent to which retroactive interference caused by non-verbal and verbal intervening tasks affects recall of verbal information in non-demented, older adults. The effects of retroactive interference on recall of words during Long-Delay recall on the California Verbal Learning Test-II (CVLT-II) were evaluated. Participants included 85 adults age 60 and older. During a 20-minute delay interval on the CVLT-II, participants received either a verbal (WAIS-III Vocabulary or Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-IIIB) or non-verbal (Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices or WAIS-III Block Design) intervening task. Similarly to previous research with young adults (Williams & Donovick, 2008), older adults recalled the same number of words across all groups, regardless of the type of intervening task. These findings suggest that the administration of verbal intervening tasks during the CVLT-II do not elicit more retroactive interference than non-verbal intervening tasks, and thus verbal tasks need not be avoided during the delay interval of the CVLT-II.

Interference with olfactory memory by visual and verbal tasks.

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Annett, J M; Cook, N M; Leslie, J C

1995-06-01

It has been claimed that olfactory memory is distinct from memory in other modalities. This study investigated the effectiveness of visual and verbal tasks in interfering with olfactory memory and included methodological changes from other recent studies. Subjects were allocated to one of four experimental conditions involving interference tasks [no interference task; visual task; verbal task; visual-plus-verbal task] and presented 15 target odours. Either recognition of the odours or free recall of the odour names was tested on one occasion, either within 15 minutes of presentation or one week later. Recognition and recall performance both showed effects of interference of visual and verbal tasks but there was no effect for time of testing. While the results may be accommodated within a dual coding framework, further work is indicated to resolve theoretical issues relating to task complexity.

Visual perception can account for the close relation between numerosity processing and computational fluency.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhou, Xinlin; Wei, Wei; Zhang, Yiyun; Cui, Jiaxin; Chen, Chuansheng

2015-01-01

Studies have shown that numerosity processing (e.g., comparison of numbers of dots in two dot arrays) is significantly correlated with arithmetic performance. Researchers have attributed this association to the fact that both tasks share magnitude processing. The current investigation tested an alternative hypothesis, which states that visual perceptual ability (as measured by a figure-matching task) can account for the close relation between numerosity processing and arithmetic performance (computational fluency). Four hundred and twenty four third- to fifth-grade children (220 boys and 204 girls, 8.0-11.0 years old; 120 third graders, 146 fourth graders, and 158 fifth graders) were recruited from two schools (one urban and one suburban) in Beijing, China. Six classes were randomly selected from each school, and all students in each selected class participated in the study. All children were given a series of cognitive and mathematical tests, including numerosity comparison, figure matching, forward verbal working memory, visual tracing, non-verbal matrices reasoning, mental rotation, choice reaction time, arithmetic tests and curriculum-based mathematical achievement test. Results showed that figure-matching ability had higher correlations with numerosity processing and computational fluency than did other cognitive factors (e.g., forward verbal working memory, visual tracing, non-verbal matrix reasoning, mental rotation, and choice reaction time). More important, hierarchical multiple regression showed that figure matching ability accounted for the well-established association between numerosity processing and computational fluency. In support of the visual perception hypothesis, the results suggest that visual perceptual ability, rather than magnitude processing, may be the shared component of numerosity processing and arithmetic performance.

Differential Modulation of Performance in Insight and Divergent Thinking Tasks with tDCS

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Goel, Vinod; Eimontaite, Iveta; Goel, Amit; Schindler, Igor

2015-01-01

While both insight and divergent thinking tasks are used to study creativity, there are reasons to believe that the two may call upon very different mechanisms. To explore this hypothesis, we administered a verbal insight task (riddles) and a divergent thinking task (verbal fluency) to 16 native English speakers and 16 non-native English speakers…

Comparison of Animal, Action and Phonemic Fluency in Aphasia

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Faroqi-Shah, Yasmeen; Milman, Lisa

2018-01-01

Background: The ability to generate words that follow certain constraints, or verbal fluency, is a sensitive indicator of neurocognitive impairment, and is impacted by a variety of variables. Aims: To investigate the effect of post-stroke aphasia, elicitation category and linguistic variables on verbal fluency performance. Methods &…

The effect of deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus on executive functions: impaired verbal fluency and intact updating, planning and conflict resolution in Parkinson's disease.

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Demeter, Gyula; Valálik, István; Pajkossy, Péter; Szőllősi, Ágnes; Lukács, Ágnes; Kemény, Ferenc; Racsmány, Mihály

2017-04-24

Although the improvement of motor symptoms in Parkinson's disease (PD) after deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) is well documented, there are open questions regarding its impact on cognitive functions. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of bilateral DBS of the STN on executive functions in PD patients using a DBS wait-listed PD control group. Ten PD patients with DBS implantation (DBS group) and ten PD wait-listed patients (Clinical control group) participated in the study. Neuropsychological tasks were used to assess general mental ability and various executive functions. Each task was administered twice to each participant: before and after surgery (with the stimulators on) in the DBS group and with a matched delay between the two task administration points in the control group. There was no significant difference between the DBS and the control groups' performance in tasks measuring the updating of verbal, spatial or visual information (Digit span, Corsi and N-back tasks), planning and shifting (Trail Making B), and conflict resolution (Stroop task). However, the DBS group showed a significant decline on the semantic verbal fluency task after surgery compared to the control group, which is in line with findings of previous studies. Our results provide support for the relative cognitive safety of the STN DBS using a wait-listed PD control group. Differential effects of the STN DBS on frontostriatal networks are discussed. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Teaching Task Sequencing via Verbal Mediation.

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Rusch, Frank R.; And Others

1987-01-01

Verbal sequence training was used to teach a moderately mentally retarded woman to sequence job-related tasks. Learning to say the tasks in the proper sequence resulted in the employee performing her tasks in that sequence, and the employee was capable of mediating her own work behavior when scheduled changes occurred. (Author/JDD)

Finger tapping and verbal fluency post-tap test improvement in INPH: its value in differential diagnosis and shunt-treatment outcomes prognosis.

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Liouta, Evangelia; Gatzonis, Stylianos; Kalamatianos, Theodosis; Kalyvas, Aristotelis; Koutsarnakis, Christos; Liakos, Faidon; Anagnostopoulos, Christos; Komaitis, Spyridon; Giakoumettis, Dimitris; Stranjalis, George

2017-12-01

Idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus (INPH) diagnosis is challenging as it can be mimicked by other neurological conditions, such as neurodegenerative dementia and motor syndromes. Additionally, outcomes after lumbar puncture (LP) tap test and shunt treatment may vary due to the lack of a common protocol in INPH assessment. The present study aimed to assess whether a post-LP test amelioration of frontal cognitive dysfunctions, characterizing this syndrome, can differentiate INPH from similar neurological conditions and whether this improvement can predict INPH post-shunt outcomes. Seventy-one consecutive patients referred for INPH suspicion and LP testing, were enrolled. According to the consensus guidelines criteria, 29 patients were diagnosed as INPH and 42 were assigned an alternative diagnosis (INPH-like group) after reviewing clinical, neuropsychological and imaging data, and before LP results. A comprehensive neuropsychological assessment for frontal executive, upper extremity fine motor functions, aphasias, apraxias, agnosias and gait evaluation were administered at baseline. Executive, fine motor functions and gait were re-examined post-LP test in all patients and post-shunt placement in INPH patients. Of the INPH patients, 86.2% showed cognitive amelioration in the post-LP test; in addition, all but one (97%) presented with neurocognitive and gait improvement post-shunt. Verbal phonological fluency and finger tapping task post-LP improvement predicted positive clinical outcome post-shunt. None of the INPH-like group presented with neurocognitive improvement post-LP. Post-LP amelioration of verbal fluency and finger tapping deficits can differentiate INPH from similar disorders and predict positive post-shunt clinical outcome in INPH. This becomes of great importance when gait assessment is difficult to perform in clinical practice.

Examining the relationship between rapid automatized naming and arithmetic fluency in Chinese kindergarten children.

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Cui, Jiaxin; Georgiou, George K; Zhang, Yiyun; Li, Yixun; Shu, Hua; Zhou, Xinlin

2017-02-01

Rapid automatized naming (RAN) has been found to predict mathematics. However, the nature of their relationship remains unclear. Thus, the purpose of this study was twofold: (a) to examine how RAN (numeric and non-numeric) predicts a subdomain of mathematics (arithmetic fluency) and (b) to examine what processing skills may account for the RAN-arithmetic fluency relationship. A total of 160 third-year kindergarten Chinese children (83 boys and 77 girls, mean age=5.11years) were assessed on RAN (colors, objects, digits, and dice), nonverbal IQ, visual-verbal paired associate learning, phonological awareness, short-term memory, speed of processing, approximate number system acuity, and arithmetic fluency (addition and subtraction). The results indicated first that RAN was a significant correlate of arithmetic fluency and the correlations did not vary as a function of type of RAN or arithmetic fluency tasks. In addition, RAN continued to predict addition and subtraction fluency even after controlling for all other processing skills. Taken together, these findings challenge the existing theoretical accounts of the RAN-arithmetic fluency relationship and suggest that, similar to reading fluency, multiple processes underlie the RAN-arithmetic fluency relationship. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Use of Profanity During Letter Fluency Tasks in Frontotemporal Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease

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Ringman, John M.; Kwon, Eunice; Flores, Deborah L.; Rotko, Carol; Mendez, Mario F.; Lu, Po

2012-01-01

Objective To assess whether the production of profanity during letter fluency testing distinguishes frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients. Background Alterations in language and social behavior typify FTD spectrum disorders. Nonetheless, in can be difficult to distinguish pathologically-defined frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) from AD clinically. Assessing verbal fluency by having patients generate as many words as they can beginning with specific letters in a given period of time can yield diverse information of diagnostic utility. Method Words produced during FAS letter fluency testing were reviewed and instances of the use of "f*ck", "*ss", and "sh*t" and other words felt to be inappropriate were sought. The frequency of these words was compared between clinically diagnosed FTD and AD patients using chi-square tests. Results We found that 6/32 (18.8%) patients with FTD generated the word "f*ck" during the "F" trial as opposed to none of 38 patients with AD (p = 0.007). Patients who said "f*ck" had diagnoses of either behavioral variant FTD (3/15), progressive non-fluent aphasia (2/8), or semantic dementia (1/3). Conclusions Though the specific neuropathology in these cases is uncertain, generation of "f*ck" during letter fluency testing appears to have utility in differentiating FTD from AD. PMID:20829665

Developmental changes in using verbal self-cueing in task-switching situations: the impact of task practice and task-sequencing demands

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Kray, Jutta; Gaspard, Hanna; Karbach, Julia; Blaye, Agnès

2013-01-01

In this study we examined whether developmental changes in using verbal self-cueing for task-goal maintenance are dependent on the amount of task practice and task-sequencing demands. To measure task-goal maintenance we applied a switching paradigm in which children either performed only task A or B in single-task blocks or switched between them on every second trial in mixed-task blocks. Task-goal maintenance was determined by comparing the performance between both blocks (mixing costs). The influence of verbal self-cueing was measured by instructing children to either name the next task aloud or not to verbalize during task preparation. Task-sequencing demands were varied between groups whereas one group received spatial task cues to support keeping track of the task sequence, while the other group did not. We also varied by the amount of prior practice in task switching while one group of participants practiced task switching first, before performing the task naming in addition, and the other group did it vice versa. Results of our study investigating younger (8–10 years) and older children (11–13 years) revealed no age differences in beneficial effects of verbal self-cueing. In line with previous findings, children showed reduced mixing costs under task-naming instructions and under conditions of low task-sequence demands (with the presence of spatial task cues). Our results also indicated that these benefits were only obtained for those groups of children that first received practice in task switching alone with no additional verbalization instruction. These findings suggest that internal task-cueing strategies can be efficiently used in children but only if they received prior practice in the underlying task so that demands on keeping and coordinating various instructions are reduced. Moreover, children benefitted from spatial task cues for better task-goal maintenance only if no verbal task-cueing strategy was introduced first. PMID:24381566

Differences in the verbal fluency, working memory and executive functions in alcoholics: Short-term vs. long-term abstainers.

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Nowakowska-Domagała, Katarzyna; Jabłkowska-Górecka, Karolina; Mokros, Łukasz; Koprowicz, Jacek; Pietras, Tadeusz

2017-03-01

The aim of the study was to assess differences in verbal fluency, working memory and executive functions in two subgroups of alcohol-dependent patients, those undergoing short-term abstinence (STA) and those undergoing long-term abstinence (LTA), and to compare the level of cognitive functions in patients after long-term abstinence with healthy subjects. The study group consisted of 106 alcohol-dependent patients (53 immediately after drinking at least 3 days and 53 after at least one-year abstinence). The control group comprised 53 subjects, whose age, sex and education levels matched those of the patients in the experimental group. The dependence intensity was assessed using SADD and MAST scales. The neuropsychological assessment was based on the FAS Test, Stroop Test and TMT A&B Test. The results obtained for alcohol-dependent patients revealed significant disturbances of cognitive functions. Such results indicate the presence of severe frontal cerebral cortex dysfunctions. Frontal cortex dysfunctions affecting the verbal fluency and working memory subsystems and the executive functions also persisted during long-term abstinence periods. No significant correlations between the duration of dependence, quantity of alcohol consumed and efficiency of the working memory and executive functions were observed in alcohol-dependent subjects after short-term or long-term abstinence. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Semantic organization in children with Cochlear Implants: Computational analysis of verbal fluency

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Yoed Nissan Kenett

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Purpose: Cochlear implants (CIs enable children with severe and profound hearing impairments to perceive the sensation of sound sufficiently to permit oral language acquisition. So far, studies have focused mainly on technological improvements and general outcomes of implantation for speech perception and spoken language development. This study quantitatively explored the semantic networks of children with CIs in comparison to those of age-matched normal hearing (NH peers.Method: Twenty seven children with CIs and twenty seven age- and IQ-matched NH children ages 7-10 were tested on a timed animal verbal fluency task (Name as many animals as you can. The responses were analyzed using correlation and network methodologies. The structure of the animal category semantic networks for both groups were extracted and compared.Results: Children with CIs appeared to have a less-developed semantic lexicon structure compared to age-matched NH peers. The average shortest path length and the network diameter measures were larger for the NH group compared to the CIs group. This difference was consistent for the analysis of networks derived from animal names generated by each group (sample-matched correlation networks and for the networks derived from the common animal names generated by both groups (word-matched correlation networks.Conclusions: The main difference between the semantic networks of children with CIs and NH children lies in the network structure. The semantic network of children with CIs is under-developed compared to the semantic network of the age-matched NH children. We discuss the practical and clinical implications of our findings.

Second language as a compensatory resource for maintaining verbal fluency in bilingual immigrants with schizophrenia.

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Smirnova, D; Walters, J; Fine, J; Muchnik-Rozanov, Y; Paz, M; Lerner, V; Belmaker, R H; Bersudsky, Y

2015-08-01

Due to the large migrations over the past three decades, large numbers of individuals with schizophrenia are learning a second language and being seen in clinics in that second language. We conducted within-subject comparisons to clarify the contribution of clinical, linguistic and bilingual features in the first and second languages of bilinguals with schizophrenia. Ten bilingual Russian(L1) and Hebrew(L2) proficient patients, who developed clinical schizophrenia after achieving proficiency in both languages, were selected from 60 candidates referred for the study; they were resident in Israel 7-32 years with 3-10 years from immigration to diagnosis. Clinical, linguistic and fluency markers were coded in transcripts of clinical interviews. There was a trend toward more verbal productivity in the first language (L1) than the second language (L2). Clinical speech markers associated with thought disorder and cognitive impairment (blocking and topic shift) were similar in both languages. Among linguistic markers of schizophrenia, Incomplete syntax and Speech role reference were significantly more frequent in L2 than L1; Lexical repetition and Unclear reference demonstrated a trend in the same direction. For fluency phenomena, Discourse markers were more prevalent in L1 than L2, and Codeswitching was similar across languages, showing that the patients were attuned to the socio-pragmatics of language use. More frequent linguistic markers of schizophrenia in L2 show more impairment in the syntactic/semantic components of language, reflecting greater thought and cognitive dysfunction. Patients are well able to acquire a second language. Nevertheless, schizophrenia finds expression in that language. Finally, more frequent fluency markers in L1 suggests motivation to maintain fluency, evidenced in particular by codeswitched L2 lexical items, a compensatory resource. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Control Deficit Subjects are Superior for Man-Made Objects on a Verbal Semantic Task

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Carlos Roncero

2014-04-01

Full Text Available When semantic deficits occur following brain damage, the subjects generally show anomia as well as deficits on semantic matching tasks such as the Camels and Cactus test. Such individuals can be further characterized as demonstrating either a semantic control deficit or a storage deficit (Jeffries & Lambon Ralph, 2006. Semantic control subjects show improved performance when responses are constrained, but storage subjects do not. In the present study, we categorized 17 subjects with neurodegenerative diseases – Alzheimer’s disease and Primary Progressive Aphasia - as Semantic Storage or Semantic Control patterns of deficit, based on their performance on three semantic tasks—Naming, Cued Naming, and Word-to-Picture Matching. This was done independent of both the subject’s localization of brain damage and clinical diagnosis. Subjects who demonstrated impaired performance on the Naming task, but showed normal performance on Cued Naming and Word-to-Picture Matching, were classified as showing a control deficit (N = 8, while subjects who were impaired on all three semantic tasks were classified as anomic subjects with a storage deficit (N = 9. Despite only using these three semantic tasks, the identified sub-groups demonstrated different patterns of semantic knowledge consistent with either a control deficit or a storage deficit. The identified sub-groups, for example, were comparable for letter fluency, but subjects with a storage deficit were significantly worse for animal fluency. Accessing subjects’ semantic knowledge with the word and picture versions of the Camels and Cactus test, we also found that storage deficit subjects’ performance was equally poor on both versions compared to normal elderly participants, whereas control deficit subjects were relatively impaired only in the word version. Finally, comparing FDG PET scans for these subjects, we noted storage deficit subjects typically had bilateral temporal damage—all but one

The Effects of Pre-Task, On-Line, and Both Pre-Task and On-Line Planning on Fluency, Complexity, and Accuracy--The Case of Iranian EFL Learners' Written Production

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Piri, Faramarz; Barati, Hossein; Ketabi, Saeed

2012-01-01

Previous studies on the effect of planning on language production have revealed that planning does have a positive effect on language performance in terms of fluency, complexity, and accuracy. The present study was an attempt to investigate the effects of pre-task, on-line, and both pre-task and on-line planning on fluency, accuracy, and…

Analysis of Speech Fluency in Williams Syndrome

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Rossi, Natalia Freitas; Sampaio, Adriana; Goncalves, Oscar F.; Giacheti, Celia Maria

2011-01-01

Williams syndrome (WS) is a neurodevelopmental genetic disorder, often referred as being characterized by dissociation between verbal and non-verbal abilities, although the number of studies disputing this proposal is emerging. Indeed, although they have been traditionally reported as displaying increased speech fluency, this topic has not been…

Does early verbal fluency decline after STN implantation predict long-term cognitive outcome after STN-DBS in Parkinson's disease?

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Borden, Alaina; Wallon, David; Lefaucheur, Romain; Derrey, Stéphane; Fetter, Damien; Verin, Marc; Maltête, David

2014-11-15

An early and transient verbal fluency (VF) decline and impairment in frontal executive function, suggesting a cognitive microlesion effect may influence the cognitive repercussions related to subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation (STN-DBS). Neuropsychological tests including semantic and phonemic verbal fluency were administered both before surgery (baseline), the third day after surgery (T3), at six months (T180), and at an endpoint multiple years after surgery (Tyears). Twenty-four patients (mean age, 63.5 ± 9.5 years; mean disease duration, 12 ± 5.8 years) were included. Both semantic and phonemic VF decreased significantly in the acute post-operative period (44.4 ± 28.2% and 34.3 ± 33.4%, respectively) and remained low at 6 months compared to pre-operative levels (decrease of 3.4 ± 47.8% and 10.8 ± 32.1%) (P < 0.05). Regression analysis showed phonemic VF to be an independent factor of decreased phonemic VF at six months. Age was the only independent predictive factor for incident Parkinson's disease dementia (PDD) (F (4,19)=3.4, P<0.03). An acute post-operative decline in phonemic VF can be predictive of a long-term phonemic VF deficit. The severity of this cognitive lesion effect does not predict the development of dementia which appears to be disease-related. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Performance on verbal and low-verbal false belief tasks: evidence from children with Williams syndrome.

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Van Herwegen, Jo; Dimitriou, Dagmara; Rundblad, Gabriella

2013-01-01

Previous studies that have investigated the relationship between performance on theory of mind (ToM) tasks and verbal abilities in individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) have reported contradictory findings with some showing that language abilities aid performance on ToM tasks while others have found that participants with WS fail these tasks because of their verbal demands. The current study investigated this relationship again comparing performance on a classical change-location task to two newly developed low-verbal tasks, one change-location task and one unexpected content task. Thirty children with WS (aged 5-17;01 years) and 30 typically developing (TD) children (aged between 2;10 years and 9;09 years), who were matched for vocabulary comprehension scores were included in the study. Although performance in the WS group was significantly poorer compared to the TD group on all three tasks, performance was not predicted by their receptive vocabulary or grammatical ability scores. In addition, ToM abilities in both groups depended on the cognitive demands of the task at hand. This finding shows that performance on ToM tasks in WS is not necessarily hindered by their delayed language abilities but rather by the task administered. This could potentially affect the diagnosis of developmental disorders, such as Autism Spectrum Disorders, and comparison of ToM abilities across developmental disorders. Readers of this article should be able to (1) describe the current state of theory of mind research in Williams syndrome, (2) identify which cognitive abilities might explain performance on theory of mind tasks in both typically developing children and in children with Williams syndrome, and (3) interpret the importance of task demands when assessing children's theory of mind abilities. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Frontal and anterior cingulate activation during overt verbal fluency in patients with first episode psychosis Ativação frontal e do cíngulo anterior durante tarefa de fluência verbal em pacientes em primeiro episódio psicótico

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Maristela Schaufelberger

2005-09-01

Full Text Available OBJECTIVE: Functional neuroimaging studies using phonological verbal fluency tasks allow the assessment of neural circuits relevant to the neuropsychology of psychosis. There is evidence that the prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate gyrus present different activation patterns in subjects with chronic schizophrenia relative to healthy controls. We assessed the functioning in these brain regions during phonological verbal fluency in subjects with recent-onset functional psychoses, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI. METHODS: Seven patients with functional psychoses (3 schizophreniform, 4 affective and 9 healthy controls were studied. We compared functional magnetic resonance images acquired during articulation of words beginning with letters classified as easy for word production in Portuguese. Statistical comparisons were performed using non-parametric tests. RESULTS: There were no differences between patients and controls in task performance. Controls showed greater activation than patients in the left rostral anterior cingulate gyrus and right inferior prefrontal cortex, whereas patients showed stronger activation than controls in a more dorsal part of the anterior cingulate gyrus bilaterally and in a more superior portion of the right prefrontal cortex. CONCLUSION: Our preliminary findings of attenuated engagement of inferior prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate gyrus in patients with recent onset psychosis during phonological verbal fluency are consistent with those of previous studies. The greater activation found in other parts of the anterior cingulate gyrus and prefrontal cortex in patients may be related to a compensatory response that is required to maintain normal task performance, and suggests a pattern of disorganized activity of different functional anterior cingulate gyrus units in association with psychotic conditions.OBJETIVO: Estudos de neuroimagem funcional empregando tarefa de fluência verbal fonol

Cerebrocerebellar networks during articulatory rehearsal and verbal working memory tasks.

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Chen, S H Annabel; Desmond, John E

2005-01-15

Converging evidence has implicated the cerebellum in verbal working memory. The current fMRI study sought to further characterize cerebrocerebellar participation in this cognitive process by revealing regions of activation common to a verbal working task and an articulatory control task, as well as regions that are uniquely activated by working memory. Consistent with our model's predictions, load-dependent activations were observed in Broca's area (BA 44/6) and the superior cerebellar hemisphere (VI/CrusI) for both working memory and motoric rehearsal. In contrast, activations unique to verbal working memory were found in the inferior parietal lobule (BA 40) and the right inferior cerebellum hemisphere (VIIB). These findings provide evidence for two cerebrocerebellar networks for verbal working memory: a frontal/superior cerebellar articulatory control system and a parietal/inferior cerebellar phonological storage system.

Putting the Fun Back into Fluency Instruction

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Cahill, Mary Ann; Gregory, Anne E.

2011-01-01

Based on recent research in fluency instruction, the authors present a scenario in which a teacher focuses her fluency instruction on authentic fluency tasks based in performance. Beginning with establishing a student-friendly definition of fluency and culminating with student engagement in fun fluency activities, this article explores the…

Semantic Verbal Fluency test in dementia: Preliminary retrospective analysis

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Marcos Lopes

Full Text Available Abstract The Semantic Verbal Fluency (SVF test entails the generation of words from a given category within a pre-set time of 60 seconds. Objectives: To verify whether socio-demographic and clinical data of individuals with dementia correlate with the performance on the SVF test and to ascertain whether differences among the criteria of number of answers, clusters and data spread over the intervals, predict clinical results. Methods: This was a retrospective study of 49 charts of demented patients classified according to the Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR scale. We correlated education, age and gender, as well as CDR and Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE scores with the number of answers, clustering and switching distributed over four 15-second intervals on the SVF test. Results: The correlation between number of answers and quartiles was weak (r=0.407, p=0.004; r=0.484, p<0.001 but correlation between the number of clusters and responses was strong (r=0.883, p<0.001. The number of items on the SVF was statistically significant with MMSE score (p=0.01 and there was a tendency for significance on the CDR (p=0.06. The results indicated little activity regarding what we propose to call cluster recalling in the two groups. Discussion: The SVF test, using number of items generated, was found to be more effective than classic screening tests in terms of speed and ease of application in patients with CDR 2 and 3.

Semantic verbal fluency in elderly Mexican adults: Reference values.

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Chávez-Oliveros, M; Rodríguez-Agudelo, Y; Acosta-Castillo, I; García-Ramírez, N; Rojas de la Torre, G; Sosa-Ortiz, A L

2015-05-01

The semantic verbal fluency test (SVF) is sensitive to detecting cognitive decline. It is fast and easy to use in any cultural context; therefore, it is included in most of the neuropsychological assessment protocols. To estimate normative values for the SVF test (animals), in an elderly population aged 65 years and over. 1233 subjects who were healthy, cognitively preserved, residents of two areas (rural and urban) of Mexico were assessed. A neurological and neuropsychological exploration battery was applied, including SVF. The age average was 73+6 and schooling was 4.0+3.9 years, with 59% women. The average of the words generated in the SVF test was 14+5, and a correlation of 0.16 of these scores with age, education, and gender was found (pimportant contribution provided by this study was that the data analysis enabled normative values to be obtained for an elderly Mexican population aged 65 years and over. It was also confirmed, as other neuropsychological assessment studies have done, that the SVF test is influenced by socio-demographic variables, such as age and education, aspects to be considered at the time of obtaining normative values. Finally, it was noted that the average scores obtained were lower than other published reference values, due to the low educational level of our sample. Copyright © 2013 Sociedad Española de Neurología. Published by Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

Performance of language tasks in patients with ruptured aneurysm of the left hemisphere worses in the post-surgical evaluation

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Ana Cláudia C. Vieira

2016-08-01

Full Text Available ABSTRACT Sub-arachnoid hemorrhage (SAH promotes impairment of upper cortical functions. However, few information is available emphasizing changes in language after aneurismal SAH and aneurysm location influence. Objective To assess the language and verbal fluency performance in aneurismal SAH pre- and post-surgery in patients caused by an aneurysm of the anterior communicating artery (AcomA, left middle cerebral artery (L-MCA and left posterior comunicating artery (L-PcomA. Methods Assessment in 79 patients with SAH, on two occasions: pre- and post surgical treatment. They were divided into three groups by the aneurysms’ location. Results Deterioration is detected in the performance of all patients during the post-surgical period; L-MCA aneurysm patients displayed a reduction in verbal naming and fluency; L-PcomA patients deteriorated in the written language and fluency tasks. Conclusion After the surgical procedure the patients decreased in various language tasks and these differences in performance being directly related to the location of the aneurysm.

What would you do? The effect of verbal persuasion on task choice.

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Lamarche, Larkin; Gionfriddo, Alicia M; Cline, Lindsay E; Gammage, Kimberley L; Adkin, Allan L

2014-01-01

Verbal persuasion has been shown to influence psychological and behavioral outcomes. The present study had two objectives: (1) to examine the effect of verbal persuasion on task choice in a balance setting and (2) to evaluate the use of verbal persuasion as an approach to experimentally induce mismatches between perceived and actual balance. Healthy young adults (N=68) completed an 8-m tandem walk task without vision and then were randomly assigned to a feedback group (good, control, or poor), regardless of actual balance. Following the feedback, participants chose to perform the task in one of three conditions differing in level of challenge and also were required to perform the task under the same pre-feedback conditions. Balance efficacy and perceived stability were rated before and after each pre- and post-feedback task, respectively. Balance performance measures were also collected. Following the feedback, participants in the good group were more likely to choose the most challenging task while those in the poor group were more likely to choose the least challenging task. Following the feedback, all groups showed improved balance performance. However, balance efficacy and perceived stability increased for the good and control groups but balance efficacy decreased and perceived stability was unchanged for the poor group. Thus, these findings demonstrate that verbal persuasion can influence task choice and may be used as an approach to experimentally create mismatches between perceived and actual balance. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Developing Mathematical Fluency: Comparing Exercises and Rich Tasks

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Foster, Colin

2018-01-01

Achieving fluency in important mathematical procedures is fundamental to students' mathematical development. The usual way to develop procedural fluency is to practise repetitive exercises, but is this the only effective way? This paper reports three quasi-experimental studies carried out in a total of 11 secondary schools involving altogether 528…

Fluency aspects of oral narrative task in del22q11.2 syndrome.

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Santos, Amanda Oliveira; Rossi, Natalia Freitas; Tandel, Maria da Conceição Faria Freitas; Richieri-Costa, Antonio; Giacheti, Célia Maria

2016-01-01

To investigate the fluency aspects of the oral narrative task in individuals with del22q11.2 syndrome and compare them with those of individuals with typical language development. Fifteen individuals diagnosed with del22q11.2 syndrome, both genders, aged 7-17 years participated in this study. They were compared with 15 individuals with typical language development, with similar gender and chronological age profiles. The oral narrative was elicited using the book "Frog, Where Are You?", and the fluency aspects were analyzed according to speech rate and type and frequency of disfluency (typical and stuttering). The number and duration of pauses were also investigated. The data were statistically analyzed. The group with del22q11.2 syndrome showed a higher average when compared with the group without the syndrome for the percentage of typical disfluencies, mainly hesitation and revision. The group presenting the syndrome also showed a higher average for stuttering disfluencies, with pause as the most frequent disfluency. With respect to speech rate, the group with the syndrome presented a lower average for the number of words and syllables per minute. Individuals with del22q11.2 syndrome showed greater difficulties of narration than their peers. The fluency aspects of the oral narrative task in subjects with del22q11.2 syndrome were similar to those of individuals with typical language development regarding the presence of hesitation, revision, and pause, but they were different with respect to frequency of disfluency, which was higher in individuals with the syndrome.

Cortical thinning in the anterior cingulate cortex predicts multiple sclerosis patients' fluency performance in a lateralised manner

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Olivia Geisseler

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Cognitive impairment is as an important feature of Multiple Sclerosis (MS, and might be even more relevant to patients than mobility restrictions. Compared to the multitude of studies investigating memory deficits or basic cognitive slowing, executive dysfunction is a rarely studied cognitive domain in MS, and its neural correlates remain largely unexplored. Even rarer are topological studies on specific cognitive functions in MS. Here we used several structural MRI parameters – including cortical thinning and T2 lesion load – to investigate neural correlates of executive dysfunction, both on a global and a regional level by means of voxel- and vertex-wise analyses. Forty-eight patients with relapsing-remitting MS and 48 healthy controls participated in the study. Five executive functions were assessed, i.e. verbal and figural fluency, working memory, interference control and set shifting. Patients scored lower than controls in verbal and figural fluency only, and displayed widespread cortical thinning. On a global level, cortical thickness independently predicted verbal fluency performance, when controlling for lesion volume and central brain atrophy estimates. On a regional level, cortical thinning in the anterior cingulate region correlated with deficits in verbal and figural fluency and did so in a lateralised manner: Left-sided thinning was related to reduced verbal – but not figural – fluency, whereas the opposite pattern was observed for right-sided thinning. We conclude that executive dysfunction in MS patients can specifically affect verbal and figural fluency. The observed lateralised clinico-anatomical correlation has previously been described in brain-damaged patients with large focal lesions only, for example after stroke. Based on focal grey matter atrophy, we here show for the first time comparable lateralised findings in a white matter disease with widespread pathology.

Dissociation of verbal working memory system components using a delayed serial recall task.

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Chein, J M; Fiez, J A

2001-11-01

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to investigate the neural substrates of component processes in verbal working memory. Based on behavioral research using manipulations of verbal stimulus type to dissociate storage, rehearsal, and executive components of verbal working memory, we designed a delayed serial recall task requiring subjects to encode, maintain, and overtly recall sets of verbal items for which phonological similarity, articulatory length, and lexical status were manipulated. By using a task with temporally extended trials, we were able to exploit the temporal resolution afforded by fMRI to partially isolate neural contributions to encoding, maintenance, and retrieval stages of task performance. Several regions commonly associated with maintenance, including supplementary motor, premotor, and inferior frontal areas, were found to be active across all three trial stages. Additionally, we found that left inferior frontal and supplementary motor regions showed patterns of stimulus and temporal sensitivity implicating them in distinct aspects of articulatory rehearsal, while no regions showed a pattern of sensitivity consistent with a role in phonological storage. Regional modulation by task difficulty was further investigated as a measure of executive processing. We interpret our findings as they relate to notions about the cognitive architecture underlying verbal working memory performance.

The Relationship between Temporal Measures of Oral Fluency and Ratings of Fluency: A Case of Iranian Advanced EFL Learners

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Ali Akbar Farahani

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Objective fluency judgment has always been a formidable task in language testing. Nonetheless, temporal fluency is the type of fluency which can be measured and quantified. Given that, temporal fluency is also known as temporal measures of fluency (Luoma, 2004. Furthermore, it has aroused considerable interest in analyzing speech of language learners in terms of quantitative measures (Kormos & Denes, 2004; Freed, 1995; Riggenbach, 1991; Lennon, 1990. They suggested that certain measures of fluency can more objectively specify fluency level and that perceptual understanding of fluency to a high extent correlate with these measures. Following these studies, the present study was an endeavor to relate quantitative measures of fluency and assessment of fluency in oral speech of L2 learners. To do so 30 advanced EFL learners whose speaking score on TOEFL iBT scale was between 19 to 22, i.e. B2 on CEFR scale, were selected. Then, they were given a picture strip as the elicitation task and asked to make up a story based on that. Their voice was recorded, transcribed and further analyzed by voice analysis software called PRAAT to calculate seven measures of fluency. Meanwhile, two trained listeners were required to rate the recordings, scoring them from 1 to 9. Finally, the relationship between these variables was calculated. The results showed that judge listeners’ ratings of fluency were highly correlated with speech rate, phonation time ratio, and mean length of runs. Moreover, among the measures of temporal fluency speech rate proved significantly correlated with articulation rate, phonation time ratio, and mean length of runs.

Verbal working memory and reading abilities among students with visual impairment.

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Argyropoulos, Vassilios; Masoura, Elvira; Tsiakali, Thomai K; Nikolaraizi, Magda; Lappa, Christina

2017-05-01

This study investigated the relationship between working memory (WM) and reading abilities among students with visual impairment (VI). Seventy-five students with VI (visually impairment and blindness), aged 10-15 years old participated in the study, of whom 44 were visually impaired and 31 were blind. The participants' reading ability was assessed with the standardized reading ability battery Test-A (Padeliadu & Antoniou, 2008) and their verbal working memory ability was assessed with the listening recall task from the Working Memory Test Battery for Children (Pickering et al., 2001). Data analysis indicated a strong correlation between verbal WM and decoding, reading comprehension and overall reading ability among the participants with VI, while no correlation was found between reading fluency and verbal WM. The present study points out the important role of verbal WM in reading among students who are VI and carries implications for the education of those individuals. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Questioning the rule of thumb: can verbal tasks be administered during the CVLT-II delay interval?

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Williams, Bethany R; Donovick, Peter J

2008-09-01

In the manual for the California Verbal Learning Test - II (CVLT-II), the authors suggest that nonverbal, rather than verbal, tasks be administered during the delay interval between administrations of the Short- and Long-Delay Recall trials of this test. They contend that this method minimizes the retroactive interference produced by intervening tasks. The purpose of the current study was to compare the extent to which verbal and nonverbal intervening tasks produce retroactive interference on CVLT-II List A recall following the long-delay. Participants in the present study were 120 undergraduate students. All participants completed the CVLT-II, and were randomly assigned to a group in which they were administered either a verbal (WAIS-III Vocabulary or Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test - IIIB) or nonverbal (Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices or WAIS-III Block Design) intervening task during the long-delay interval of the CVLT-II. Statistical analyses revealed that regardless of the type of intervening task given, participants in all groups recalled the same number of words and produced a similar number of intrusions during the CVLT-II recall trials. This indicates that not all verbal tasks produce retroactive effects beyond those produced by nonverbal tasks.

Alterations in Resting-State Activity Relate to Performance in a Verbal Recognition Task

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López Zunini, Rocío A.; Thivierge, Jean-Philippe; Kousaie, Shanna; Sheppard, Christine; Taler, Vanessa

2013-01-01

In the brain, resting-state activity refers to non-random patterns of intrinsic activity occurring when participants are not actively engaged in a task. We monitored resting-state activity using electroencephalogram (EEG) both before and after a verbal recognition task. We show a strong positive correlation between accuracy in verbal recognition and pre-task resting-state alpha power at posterior sites. We further characterized this effect by examining resting-state post-task activity. We found marked alterations in resting-state alpha power when comparing pre- and post-task periods, with more pronounced alterations in participants that attained higher task accuracy. These findings support a dynamical view of cognitive processes where patterns of ongoing brain activity can facilitate –or interfere– with optimal task performance. PMID:23785436

Verbal Problem-Solving Difficulties in Autism Spectrum Disorders and Atypical Language Development

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Alderson-Day, Ben

2018-01-01

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) adopt less efficient strategies than typically developing (TD) peers on the Twenty Questions Task (TQT), a measure of verbal problem-solving skills. Although problems with the TQT are typically associated with executive dysfunction, they have also been reported in children who are deaf, suggesting a role for atypical language development. To test the contribution of language history to ASD problem solving, TQT performance was compared in children with high-functioning autism (HFA), children with Asperger syndrome (AS) and TD children. The HFA group used significantly less efficient strategies than both AS and TD children. No group differences were evident on tests of question understanding, planning or verbal fluency. Potential explanations for differences in verbal problem-solving skill are discussed with reference to the development of inner speech and use of visual strategies in ASD. PMID:25346354

Verbal and visuospatial working memory as predictors of children's reading ability.

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Pham, Andy V; Hasson, Ramzi M

2014-08-01

Children with reading difficulties often demonstrate weaknesses in working memory (WM). This research study explored the relation between two WM systems (verbal and visuospatial WM) and reading ability in a sample of school-aged children with a wide range of reading skills. Children (N = 157), ages 9-12, were administered measures of short-term memory, verbal WM, visuospatial WM, and reading measures (e.g., reading fluency and comprehension). Although results indicated that verbal WM was a stronger predictor in reading fluency and comprehension, visuospatial WM also significantly predicted reading skills, but provided more unique variance in reading comprehension than reading fluency. These findings suggest that visuospatial WM may play a significant role in higher level reading processes, particularly in reading comprehension, than previously thought. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Musical practice and cognitive aging: two cross-sectional studies point to phonemic fluency as a potential candidate for a use-dependent adaptation.

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Fauvel, Baptiste; Groussard, Mathilde; Mutlu, Justine; Arenaza-Urquijo, Eider M; Eustache, Francis; Desgranges, Béatrice; Platel, Hervé

2014-01-01

Because of permanent use-dependent brain plasticity, all lifelong individuals' experiences are believed to influence the cognitive aging quality. In older individuals, both former and current musical practices have been associated with better verbal skills, visual memory, processing speed, and planning function. This work sought for an interaction between musical practice and cognitive aging by comparing musician and non-musician individuals for two lifetime periods (middle and late adulthood). Long-term memory, auditory-verbal short-term memory, processing speed, non-verbal reasoning, and verbal fluencies were assessed. In Study 1, measures of processing speed and auditory-verbal short-term memory were significantly better performed by musicians compared with controls, but both groups displayed the same age-related differences. For verbal fluencies, musicians scored higher than controls and displayed different age effects. In Study 2, we found that lifetime period at training onset (childhood vs. adulthood) was associated with phonemic, but not semantic, fluency performances (musicians who had started to practice in adulthood did not perform better on phonemic fluency than non-musicians). Current frequency of training did not account for musicians' scores on either of these two measures. These patterns of results are discussed by setting the hypothesis of a transformative effect of musical practice against a non-causal explanation.

Interference between a fast-paced spatial puzzle task and verbal memory demands.

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Epling, Samantha L; Blakely, Megan J; Russell, Paul N; Helton, William S

2017-06-01

Research continues to provide evidence that people are poor multi-taskers. Cognitive resource theory is a common explanation for the inability to efficiently perform multiple tasks at the same time. This theory proposes that one's limited supply of cognitive resources can be utilized faster than it is replenished, which results in a performance decline, particularly when these limited resources must be allocated among multiple tasks. Researchers have proposed both domain-specific, for example, spatial versus verbal processing resources, and domain general cognitive resources. In the present research, we investigated whether a spatial puzzle task performed simultaneously with a verbal recall task would impair performance in either task or both tasks, compared to performance on the tasks individually. As hypothesized, a reduction in word recall was found when dual-tasking, though performance on the puzzle task did not significantly differ between the single- and dual-task conditions. This is consistent, in part, with both a general resource theory and a Multiple Resource Theory, but further work is required to better understand the cognitive processing system. The employment of the recall task in the dual-task paradigm with a variety of secondary tasks will help to continue mapping out the specificity (or lack thereof) of cognitive resources utilized in various mental and physical tasks.

Computerized Analysis of Verbal Fluency: Normative Data and the Effects of Repeated Testing, Simulated Malingering, and Traumatic Brain Injury.

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David L Woods

Full Text Available In verbal fluency (VF tests, subjects articulate words in a specified category during a short test period (typically 60 s. Verbal fluency tests are widely used to study language development and to evaluate memory retrieval in neuropsychiatric disorders. Performance is usually measured as the total number of correct words retrieved. Here, we describe the properties of a computerized VF (C-VF test that tallies correct words and repetitions while providing additional lexical measures of word frequency, syllable count, and typicality. In addition, the C-VF permits (1 the analysis of the rate of responding over time, and (2 the analysis of the semantic relationships between words using a new method, Explicit Semantic Analysis (ESA, as well as the established semantic clustering and switching measures developed by Troyer et al. (1997. In Experiment 1, we gathered normative data from 180 subjects ranging in age from 18 to 82 years in semantic ("animals" and phonemic (letter "F" conditions. The number of words retrieved in 90 s correlated with education and daily hours of computer-use. The rate of word production declined sharply over time during both tests. In semantic conditions, correct-word scores correlated strongly with the number of ESA and Troyer-defined semantic switches as well as with an ESA-defined semantic organization index (SOI. In phonemic conditions, ESA revealed significant semantic influences in the sequence of words retrieved. In Experiment 2, we examined the test-retest reliability of different measures across three weekly tests in 40 young subjects. Different categories were used for each semantic ("animals", "parts of the body", and "foods" and phonemic (letters "F", "A", and "S" condition. After regressing out the influences of education and computer-use, we found that correct-word z-scores in the first session did not differ from those of the subjects in Experiment 1. Word production was uniformly greater in semantic than

Musical practice and cognitive aging: two cross-sectional studies point phonemic fluency as a potential candidate for a use-dependent adaptation

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Baptiste eFAUVEL

2014-10-01

Full Text Available Because of permanent use-dependent cerebral plasticity, all lifelong individuals’ experiences are believed to influence the cognitive aging quality. In old individuals, both former and current musical practices have been associated with better verbal skills, visual memory, processing speed, and planning function. This work sought for an interaction between musical practice and cognitive aging by comparing musician and nonmusician individuals for two periods of life (late adulthood and old age. Long-term memory, auditory verbal short-term memory, processing speed, nonverbal reasoning, and verbal fluencies were assessed. In study 1, measures of processing speed and auditory verbal short-term memory showed significant better performances for musicians compared with controls, but both groups displayed the same age-related difference. For verbal fluencies, musician individuals scored higher and displayed different age effects compared with controls. In study 2, we revealed that the life period at training onset (childhood versus adulthood was associated with phonemic, but not semantic fluency performances (musicians who had started practice in adulthood did not perform better on phonemic fluency compared with nonmusicians. For these two measures, current frequency of training did not account for musicians’ scores. These patterns of results are discussed by confronting the hypothesis of a transformative effect of musical practice with non-causal explanation.

Verbal monitoring in Parkinson’s disease: A comparison between internal and external monitoring

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Mertens, Jolien; Mariën, Peter; Santens, Patrick; Pickut, Barbara A.; Hartsuiker, Robert J.

2017-01-01

Patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) display a variety of impairments in motor and non-motor language processes; speech is decreased on motor aspects such as amplitude, prosody and speed and on linguistic aspects including grammar and fluency. Here we investigated whether verbal monitoring is impaired and what the relative contributions of the internal and external monitoring route are on verbal monitoring in patients with PD relative to controls. Furthermore, the data were used to investigate whether internal monitoring performance could be predicted by internal speech perception tasks, as perception based monitoring theories assume. Performance of 18 patients with Parkinson’s disease was measured on two cognitive performance tasks and a battery of 11 linguistic tasks, including tasks that measured performance on internal and external monitoring. Results were compared with those of 16 age-matched healthy controls. PD patients and controls generally performed similarly on the linguistic and monitoring measures. However, we observed qualitative differences in the effects of noise masking on monitoring and disfluencies and in the extent to which the linguistic tasks predicted monitoring behavior. We suggest that the patients differ from healthy subjects in their recruitment of monitoring channels. PMID:28832595

Verbal problem-solving difficulties in autism spectrum disorders and atypical language development.

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Alderson-Day, Ben

2014-12-01

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) adopt less efficient strategies than typically developing (TD) peers on the Twenty Questions Task (TQT), a measure of verbal problem-solving skills. Although problems with the TQT are typically associated with executive dysfunction, they have also been reported in children who are deaf, suggesting a role for atypical language development. To test the contribution of language history to ASD problem solving, TQT performance was compared in children with high-functioning autism (HFA), children with Asperger syndrome (AS) and TD children. The HFA group used significantly less efficient strategies than both AS and TD children. No group differences were evident on tests of question understanding, planning or verbal fluency. Potential explanations for differences in verbal problem-solving skill are discussed with reference to the development of inner speech and use of visual strategies in ASD. © 2014 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The Effects of Home-Based Cognitive Training on Verbal Working Memory and Language Comprehension in Older Adulthood

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Payne, Brennan R.; Stine-Morrow, Elizabeth A. L.

2017-01-01

Effective language understanding is crucial to maintaining cognitive abilities and learning new information through adulthood. However, age-related declines in working memory (WM) have a robust negative influence on multiple aspects of language comprehension and use, potentially limiting communicative competence. In the current study (N = 41), we examined the effects of a novel home-based computerized cognitive training program targeting verbal WM on changes in verbal WM and language comprehension in healthy older adults relative to an active component-control group. Participants in the WM training group showed non-linear improvements in performance on trained verbal WM tasks. Relative to the active control group, WM training participants also showed improvements on untrained verbal WM tasks and selective improvements across untrained dimensions of language, including sentence memory, verbal fluency, and comprehension of syntactically ambiguous sentences. Though the current study is preliminary in nature, it does provide initial promising evidence that WM training may influence components of language comprehension in adulthood and suggests that home-based training of WM may be a viable option for probing the scope and limits of cognitive plasticity in older adults. PMID:28848421

The Effects of Home-Based Cognitive Training on Verbal Working Memory and Language Comprehension in Older Adulthood.

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Payne, Brennan R; Stine-Morrow, Elizabeth A L

2017-01-01

Effective language understanding is crucial to maintaining cognitive abilities and learning new information through adulthood. However, age-related declines in working memory (WM) have a robust negative influence on multiple aspects of language comprehension and use, potentially limiting communicative competence. In the current study ( N = 41), we examined the effects of a novel home-based computerized cognitive training program targeting verbal WM on changes in verbal WM and language comprehension in healthy older adults relative to an active component-control group. Participants in the WM training group showed non-linear improvements in performance on trained verbal WM tasks. Relative to the active control group, WM training participants also showed improvements on untrained verbal WM tasks and selective improvements across untrained dimensions of language, including sentence memory, verbal fluency, and comprehension of syntactically ambiguous sentences. Though the current study is preliminary in nature, it does provide initial promising evidence that WM training may influence components of language comprehension in adulthood and suggests that home-based training of WM may be a viable option for probing the scope and limits of cognitive plasticity in older adults.

The Effects of Home-Based Cognitive Training on Verbal Working Memory and Language Comprehension in Older Adulthood

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Brennan R. Payne

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Effective language understanding is crucial to maintaining cognitive abilities and learning new information through adulthood. However, age-related declines in working memory (WM have a robust negative influence on multiple aspects of language comprehension and use, potentially limiting communicative competence. In the current study (N = 41, we examined the effects of a novel home-based computerized cognitive training program targeting verbal WM on changes in verbal WM and language comprehension in healthy older adults relative to an active component-control group. Participants in the WM training group showed non-linear improvements in performance on trained verbal WM tasks. Relative to the active control group, WM training participants also showed improvements on untrained verbal WM tasks and selective improvements across untrained dimensions of language, including sentence memory, verbal fluency, and comprehension of syntactically ambiguous sentences. Though the current study is preliminary in nature, it does provide initial promising evidence that WM training may influence components of language comprehension in adulthood and suggests that home-based training of WM may be a viable option for probing the scope and limits of cognitive plasticity in older adults.

Effects of Classroom Bilingualism on Task Shifting, Verbal Memory, and Word Learning in Children

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Kaushanskaya, Margarita; Gross, Megan; Buac, Milijana

2014-01-01

We examined the effects of classroom bilingual experience in children on an array of cognitive skills. Monolingual English-speaking children were compared with children who spoke English as the native language and who had been exposed to Spanish in the context of dual-immersion schooling for an average of two years. The groups were compared on a measure of non-linguistic task-shifting; measures of verbal short-term and working memory; and measures of word-learning. The two groups of children did not differ on measures of non-linguistic task-shifting and verbal short-term memory. However, the classroom-exposure bilingual group outperformed the monolingual group on the measure of verbal working memory and a measure of word-learning. Together, these findings indicate that while exposure to a second language in a classroom setting may not be sufficient to engender changes in cognitive control, it can facilitate verbal memory and verbal learning. PMID:24576079

Effects of visual and verbal interference tasks on olfactory memory: the role of task complexity.

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Annett, J M; Leslie, J C

1996-08-01

Recent studies have demonstrated that visual and verbal suppression tasks interfere with olfactory memory in a manner which is partially consistent with a dual coding interpretation. However, it has been suggested that total task complexity rather than modality specificity of the suppression tasks might account for the observed pattern of results. This study addressed the issue of whether or not the level of difficulty and complexity of suppression tasks could explain the apparent modality effects noted in earlier experiments. A total of 608 participants were each allocated to one of 19 experimental conditions involving interference tasks which varied suppression type (visual or verbal), nature of complexity (single, double or mixed) and level of difficulty (easy, optimal or difficult) and presented with 13 target odours. Either recognition of the odours or free recall of the odour names was tested on one occasion, either within 15 minutes of presentation or one week later. Both recognition and recall performance showed an overall effect for suppression nature, suppression level and time of testing with no effect for suppression type. The results lend only limited support to Paivio's (1986) dual coding theory, but have a number of characteristics which suggest that an adequate account of olfactory memory may be broadly similar to current theories of face and object recognition. All of these phenomena might be dealt with by an appropriately modified version of dual coding theory.

The arcuate fasciculus network and verbal deficits in psychosis

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Kenney Joanne P.M.

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Verbal learning (VL and fluency (VF are prominent cognitive deficits in psychosis, of which the precise neuroanatomical contributions are not fully understood. We investigated the arcuate fasciculus (AF and its associated cortical regions to identify structural abnormalities contributing to these verbal impairments in early stages of psychotic illness.

Validity study of Animal-City Alternating Form Fluency Test in the identification of mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease

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Yun-bo SHI

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Objective To identify the sensitivity and specificity of Animal-City Alternating Form Fluency Test (ACFT differentiating mild cognitive impairment (MCI and Alzheimer's disease (AD from normal controls.  Methods A total of 121 MCI patients, 104 AD patients and 104 healthy controls, who were matched in sex, age and education level, were enrolled in this study. They performed Animal Category Verbal Fluency Test (AFT, City Category Verbal Fluency Test (CFT and ACFT. A series of standard neuropsychological tests were also administered to reflect episodic memory, verbal ability, working memory, executive function and processing speed. The validity and related influencing factors of ACFT was evaluated.  Results Compared with control group, the ACFT correct number in MCI and AD groups reduced significantly (P = 0.000, 0.000. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC curve revealed the sensitivity and specificity of ACFT in discriminating MCI (P = 0.012, 0.030 and AD (P = 0.004, 0.003 from normal controls were higher than those of AFT and CFT. There was no correlation of correct number in ACFT with age and education (P > 0.05, for all. The correlations of ACFT with Stroop Color-Word Test (SCWT, Digital Symbol Substitution Test (DSST, Shape Trail Test (STT and Digit Span Test (DS, all of which reflected attention and executive function, were significantly closer than those of AFT and CFT (P < 0.05, for all. Conclusions ACFT is more efficient in early cognitive impairment identification than the other traditional category verbal fluency tests. It is a new variant form of category verbal fluency test that could assess cognitive function and could be broadly applied in clinical practice. DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1672-6731.2015.07.010

Cross-domain interference costs during concurrent verbal and spatial serial memory tasks are asymmetric

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Morey, Candice C.; Mall, Jonathan T.

2012-01-01

Some evidence suggests that memory for serial order is domain-general. Evidence also points to asymmetries in interference between verbal and visual-spatial tasks. We confirm that concurrently remembering verbal and spatial serial lists provokes substantial interference compared with remembering a

Patterns of brain atrophy associated with episodic memory and semantic fluency decline in aging.

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Pelletier, Amandine; Bernard, Charlotte; Dilharreguy, Bixente; Helmer, Catherine; Le Goff, Melanie; Chanraud, Sandra; Dartigues, Jean-François; Allard, Michèle; Amieva, Hélène; Catheline, Gwénaëlle

2017-03-09

The cerebral substratum of age-related cognitive decline was evaluated in an elderly-cohort followed for 12 years (n=306). Participants, free of dementia, received neuropsychological assessments every two years and an MRI exam at baseline and four years later. Cognitive decline was evaluated on two broadly used tests to detect dementia: the Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test (FCSRT), a verbal episodic memory task, and the Isaacs Set Test (IST), a semantic fluency task. Using voxel-based approach, the relationship between cognitive decline with 1/ baseline grey matter volumes and 2/ grey matter volume loss between the two scans was explored. Baseline volumes analysis revealed that FCSRT and IST declines were both associated with lower volumes of the medial temporal region. Volumes loss analysis confirmed that both declines are related to medial temporal lobe atrophy and revealed that FCSRT decline was specifically associated with atrophy of the posterior cingulate cortex whereas IST decline was specifically related to temporal pole atrophy. These results suggest that cognitive decline across aging is firstly related to structural modifications of the medial temporal lobe, followed by an atrophy in the posterior midline structures for episodic memory and an atrophy of the temporal pole for semantic fluency.

Does Emotional Arousal Influence Swearing Fluency?

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Stephens, Richard; Zile, Amy

2017-08-01

This study assessed the effect of experimentally manipulated emotional arousal on swearing fluency. We hypothesised that swear word generation would be increased with raised emotional arousal. The emotional arousal of 60 participants was manipulated by having them play a first-person shooter video game or, as a control, a golf video game, in a randomised order. A behavioural measure of swearing fluency based on the Controlled Oral Word Association Test was employed. Successful experimental manipulation was indicated by raised State Hostility Questionnaire scores after playing the shooter game. Swearing fluency was significantly greater after playing the shooter game compared with the golf game. Validity of the swearing fluency task was demonstrated via positive correlations with self-reported swearing fluency and daily swearing frequency. In certain instances swearing may represent a form of emotional expression. This finding will inform debates around the acceptability of using taboo language.

An fMRI study of sex differences in regional activation to a verbal and a spatial task.

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Gur, R C; Alsop, D; Glahn, D; Petty, R; Swanson, C L; Maldjian, J A; Turetsky, B I; Detre, J A; Gee, J; Gur, R E

2000-09-01

Sex differences in cognitive performance have been documented, women performing better on some phonological tasks and men on spatial tasks. An earlier fMRI study suggested sex differences in distributed brain activation during phonological processing, with bilateral activation seen in women while men showed primarily left-lateralized activation. This blood oxygen level-dependent fMRI study examined sex differences (14 men, 13 women) in activation for a spatial task (judgment of line orientation) compared to a verbal-reasoning task (analogies) that does not typically show sex differences. Task difficulty was manipulated. Hypothesized ROI-based analysis documented the expected left-lateralized changes for the verbal task in the inferior parietal and planum temporal regions in both men and women, but only men showed right-lateralized increase for the spatial task in these regions. Image-based analysis revealed a distributed network of cortical regions activated by the tasks, which consisted of the lateral frontal, medial frontal, mid-temporal, occipitoparietal, and occipital regions. The activation was more left lateralized for the verbal and more right for the spatial tasks, but men also showed some left activation for the spatial task, which was not seen in women. Increased task difficulty produced more distributed activation for the verbal and more circumscribed activation for the spatial task. The results suggest that failure to activate the appropriate hemisphere in regions directly involved in task performance may explain certain sex differences in performance. They also extend, for a spatial task, the principle that bilateral activation in a distributed cognitive system underlies sex differences in performance. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.

2.5-Year-Olds Succeed at a Verbal Anticipatory-Looking False-Belief Task

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He, Zijing; Bolz, Matthias; Baillargeon, Renee

2012-01-01

Recent research suggests that infants and toddlers succeed at a wide range of non-elicited-response false-belief tasks (i.e., tasks that do not require children to answer a direct question about a mistaken agent's likely behaviour). However, one exception to this generalization comes from verbal anticipatory-looking tasks, which have produced…

Cognitive component of psychomotor retardation in unipolar and bipolar depression: Is verbal fluency a relevant marker? Impact of repetitive transcranial stimulation.

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Thomas-Ollivier, Véronique; Foyer, Emmanuelle; Bulteau, Samuel; Pichot, Anne; Valriviere, Pierre; Sauvaget, Anne; Deschamps, Thibault

2017-09-01

In the literature, psychomotor retardation (PMR) is increasingly highlighted as a relevant marker for depression. Currently, we chose to focus on the fluency capacities as an evaluation of the frontal lobes functioning to reach a better understanding of cognitive and neurobiological mechanisms involved in PMR in depression. The aims of this study were: (i) to explore the cognitive component of PMR through the analysis of verbal fluency (VF) performance in unipolar and bipolar depression; and (ii) to examine whether a repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation treatment could improve concomitantly the PMR and VF capacities, as a relevant marker characteristic of the cognitive component of PMR. Fifteen unipolar and 15 bipolar patients were compared to 15 healthy adults. Before treatment, the results showed VF deficits, particularly marked in the bipolar group. The investigation of the interplay between PMR, VF performance, Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale scores, and Montreal Cognitive Assessment scores showed that the deficits in these various dimensions were not homogeneous. The absence of correlation between the psychomotor retardation scale (the French Retardation Rating Scale for Depression) and VF, and the correlation with MoCA raise the hypothesis of a more global cognitive impairment associated with PMR in the BD group. The repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation treatment had a positive impact on depression, PMR, and fluency scores. Correlations between the Retardation Rating Scale for Depression and VF performances appeared after treatment, showing the cognitive role of psychomotor functioning in depression. Further analyses, including other cognitive measures in an objective evaluation of PMR, are required for a better understanding of these complex relationships. © 2017 The Authors. Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences © 2017 Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology.

Gender effects of the COMT Val 158 Met genotype on verbal fluency in healthy adults.

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Soeiro-De-Souza, Marcio Gerhardt; Bio, Danielle Soares; David, Denise Petresco; Missio, Giovani; Lima, Bruno; Fernandes, Fernando; Machado-Vieira, Rodrigo; Moreno, Ricardo Alberto

2013-09-01

Cognitive performance in healthy individuals is associated with gender differences in specific tests; a female advantage has been demonstrated in language tests, whereas a male advantage has been demonstrated in spatial relation examinations. The prefrontal cortex (PFC) mediates important cognitive domains and is influenced by dopamine (DA) activity. The single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs4680 in the catechol‑O‑methyltransferase (COMT) gene results in an amino acid substitution from valine (Val) to methionine (Met). The Met allele has been demonstrated to decrease COMT enzyme activity and improve PFC cognitive function. COMT regulates DA activity in the PFC and exhibits gender effects. The aim of the present study was to investigate the gender‑specific effects of the COMT genotype on cognition in healthy young adults. Seventy‑six healthy subjects were genotyped for COMT rs4680 and submitted to an extensive range of neuropsychological tests assessing aspects of PFC function. The COMT Met allele influenced the performance of executive function. The results revealed gender effects of the COMT rs4680 Met allele on verbal fluency, with positive effects in males and negative effects in females. This suggested that DA activity affects cognitive function in different ways, according to gender.

The Role of Verbal and Nonverbal Communication in a Two-Person, Cooperative Manipulation Task

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Sarangi P. Parikh

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Motivated by the differences between human and robot teams, we investigated the role of verbal communication between human teammates as they work together to move a large object to a series of target locations. Only one member of the group was told the target sequence by the experimenters, while the second teammate had no target knowledge. The two experimental conditions we compared were haptic-verbal (teammates are allowed to talk and haptic only (no talking allowed. The team’s trajectory was recorded and evaluated. In addition, participants completed a NASA TLX-style postexperimental survey which gauges workload along 6 different dimensions. In our initial experiment we found no significant difference in performance when verbal communication was added. In a follow-up experiment, using a different manipulation task, we did find that the addition of verbal communication significantly improved performance and reduced the perceived workload. In both experiments, for the haptic-only condition, we found that a remarkable number of groups independently improvised common haptic communication protocols (CHIPs. We speculate that such protocols can be substituted for verbal communication and that the performance difference between verbal and nonverbal communication may be related to how easy it is to distinguish the CHIPs from motions required for task completion.

Cognitive flexibility in verbal and nonverbal domains and decision making in anorexia nervosa patients: a pilot study

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Marzola Enrica

2011-10-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background This paper aimed to investigate cognitive rigidity and decision making impairments in patients diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa Restrictive type (AN-R, assessing also verbal components. Methods Thirty patients with AN-R were compared with thirty age-matched healthy controls (HC. All participants completed a comprehensive neuropsychological battery comprised of the Trail Making Test, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, Hayling Sentence Completion Task, and the Iowa Gambling Task. The Beck Depression Inventory was administered to evaluate depressive symptomatology. The influence of both illness duration and neuropsychological variables was considered. Body Mass Index (BMI, years of education, and depression severity were considered as covariates in statistical analyses. Results The AN-R group showed poorer performance on all neuropsychological tests. There was a positive correlation between illness duration and the Hayling Sentence Completion Task Net score, and number of completion answers in part B. There was a partial effect of years of education and BMI on neuropsychological test performance. Response inhibition processes and verbal fluency impairment were not associated with BMI and years of education, but were associated with depression severity. Conclusions These data provide evidence that patients with AN-R have cognitive rigidity in both verbal and non-verbal domains. The role of the impairment on verbal domains should be considered in treatment. Further research is warranted to better understand the relationship between illness state and cognitive rigidity and impaired decision-making.

Integrated cross-domain object storage in working memory: evidence from a verbal-spatial memory task.

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Morey, Candice C

2009-11-01

Working-memory theories often include domain-specific verbal and visual stores (e.g., the phonological and visuospatial buffers of Baddeley, 1986), and some also posit more general stores thought to be capable of holding verbal or visuospatial materials (Baddeley, 2000; Cowan, 2005). However, it is currently unclear which type of store is primarily responsible for maintaining objects that include components from multiple domains. In these studies, a spatial array of letters was followed by a single probe identical to an item in the array or differing systematically in spatial location, letter identity, or their combination. Concurrent verbal rehearsal suppression impaired memory in each of these trial types in a task that required participants to remember verbal-spatial binding, but did not impair memory for spatial locations if the task did not require verbal-spatial binding for a correct response. Thus, spatial information might be stored differently when it must be bound to verbal information. This suggests that a cross-domain store such as the episodic buffer of Baddeley (2000) or the focus of attention of Cowan (2001) might be used for integrated object storage, rather than the maintenance of associations between features stored in separate domain-specific buffers.

Development of a screening algorithm for Alzheimer's disease using categorical verbal fluency.

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Yeon Kyung Chi

Full Text Available We developed a weighted composite score of the categorical verbal fluency test (CVFT that can more easily and widely screen Alzheimer's disease (AD than the mini-mental status examination (MMSE. We administered the CVFT using animal category and MMSE to 423 community-dwelling mild probable AD patients and their age- and gender-matched cognitively normal controls. To enhance the diagnostic accuracy for AD of the CVFT, we obtained a weighted composite score from subindex scores of the CVFT using a logistic regression model: logit (case  = 1.160+0.474× gender +0.003× age +0.226× education level - 0.089× first-half score - 0.516× switching score -0.303× clustering score +0.534× perseveration score. The area under the receiver operating curve (AUC for AD of this composite score AD was 0.903 (95% CI = 0.883 - 0.923, and was larger than that of the age-, gender- and education-adjusted total score of the CVFT (p<0.001. In 100 bootstrapped re-samples, the composite score consistently showed better diagnostic accuracy, sensitivity and specificity for AD than the total score. Although AUC for AD of the CVFT composite score was slightly smaller than that of the MMSE (0.930, p = 0.006, the CVFT composite score may be a good alternative to the MMSE for screening AD since it is much briefer, cheaper, and more easily applicable over phone or internet than the MMSE.

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

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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…

A computational linguistic measure of clustering behavior on semantic verbal fluency task predicts risk of future dementia in the nun study.

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Pakhomov, Serguei V S; Hemmy, Laura S

2014-06-01

Generative semantic verbal fluency (SVF) tests show early and disproportionate decline relative to other abilities in individuals developing Alzheimer's disease. Optimal performance on SVF tests depends on the efficiency of using clustered organization of semantically related items and the ability to switch between clusters. Traditional approaches to clustering and switching have relied on manual determination of clusters. We evaluated a novel automated computational linguistic approach for quantifying clustering behavior. Our approach is based on Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) for computing strength of semantic relatedness between pairs of words produced in response to SVF test. The mean size of semantic clusters (MCS) and semantic chains (MChS) are calculated based on pairwise relatedness values between words. We evaluated the predictive validity of these measures on a set of 239 participants in the Nun Study, a longitudinal study of aging. All were cognitively intact at baseline assessment, measured with the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's Disease (CERAD) battery, and were followed in 18-month waves for up to 20 years. The onset of either dementia or memory impairment were used as outcomes in Cox proportional hazards models adjusted for age and education and censored at follow-up waves 5 (6.3 years) and 13 (16.96 years). Higher MCS was associated with 38% reduction in dementia risk at wave 5 and 26% reduction at wave 13, but not with the onset of memory impairment. Higher [+1 standard deviation (SD)] MChS was associated with 39% dementia risk reduction at wave 5 but not wave 13, and association with memory impairment was not significant. Higher traditional SVF scores were associated with 22-29% memory impairment and 35-40% dementia risk reduction. SVF scores were not correlated with either MCS or MChS. Our study suggests that an automated approach to measuring clustering behavior can be used to estimate dementia risk in cognitively normal

The pattern of verbal, visuospatial and procedural learning in Richardson variant of progressive supranuclear palsy in comparison to Parkinson's disease.

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Sitek, Emilia J; Wieczorek, Dariusz; Konkel, Agnieszka; Dąbrowska, Magda; Sławek, Jarosław

2017-08-29

Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) is regarded either within spectrum of atypical parkinsonian syndromes or frontotemporal lobar degeneration. We compared the verbal, visuospatial and procedural learning profiles in patients with PSP and Parkinson's disease (PD). Furthermore, the relationship between executive factors (initiation and inhibition) and learning outcomes was analyzed. Thirty-three patients with the clinical diagnosis of PSP-Richardson's syndrome (PSP-RS), 39 patients with PD and 29 age -and education -matched controls were administered Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), phonemic and semantic fluency tasks, Auditory Verbal Learning Test (AVLT), Visual Learning and Memory Test for Neuropsychological Assessment by Lamberti and Weidlich (Diagnosticum für Cerebralschädigung, DCS), Tower of Toronto (ToT) and two motor sequencing tasks. Patients with PSP-RS and PD were matched in terms of MMSE scores and mood. Performance on DCS was lower in PSP-RS than in PD. AVLT delayed recall was better in PSP-RS than PD. Motor sequencing task did not differentiate between patients. Scores on AVLT correlated positively with phonemic fluency scores in both PSP-RS and PD. ToT rule violation scores were negatively associated with DCS performance in PSP-RS and PD as well as with AVLT performance in PD. Global memory performance is relatively similar in PSP-RS and PD. Executive factors (initiation and inhibition) are closely related to memory performance in PSP-RS and PD. Visuospatial learning impairment in PSP-RS is possibly linked to impulsivity and failure to inhibit automatic responses.

The framing effect in a monetary gambling task is robust in minimally verbal language switching contexts.

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Korn, Christoph W; Heekeren, Hauke R; Oganian, Yulia

2018-04-01

Decision-making biases, in particular the framing effect, can be altered in foreign language settings (foreign language effect) and following switching between languages (the language switching effect on framing). Recently, it has been suggested that the framing effect is only affected by foreign language use if the task is presented in a rich textual form. Here, we assess whether an elaborate verbal task is also a prerequisite for the language switching effect on framing. We employed a financial gambling task that induces a robust framing effect but is less verbal than the classical framing paradigms (e.g., the Asian disease problem). We conducted an online experiment ( n = 485), where we orthogonally manipulated language use and language switching between trials. The results showed no effects of foreign language use or language switching throughout the experiment. This online result was confirmed in a laboratory experiment ( n = 27). Overall, we find that language switching does not reduce the framing effect in a paradigm with little verbal content and thus that language switching effects seem contingent on the amount of verbal processing required.

Fluency-dependent cortical activation associated with speech production and comprehension in second language learners.

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Shimada, K; Hirotani, M; Yokokawa, H; Yoshida, H; Makita, K; Yamazaki-Murase, M; Tanabe, H C; Sadato, N

2015-08-06

This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study investigated the brain regions underlying language task performance in adult second language (L2) learners. Specifically, we identified brain regions where the level of activation was associated with L2 fluency levels. Thirty Japanese-speaking adults participated in the study. All participants were L2 learners of English and had achieved varying levels of fluency, as determined by a standardized L2 English proficiency test, the Versant English Test (Pearson Education Inc., 2011). When participants performed the oral sentence building task from the production tasks administered, the dorsal part of the left inferior frontal gyrus (dIFG) showed activation patterns that differed depending on the L2 fluency levels: The more fluent the participants were, the more dIFG activation decreased. This decreased activation of the dIFG might reflect the increased automaticity of a syntactic building process. In contrast, when participants performed an oral story comprehension task, the left posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTG) showed increased activation with higher fluency levels. This suggests that the learners with higher L2 fluency were actively engaged in post-syntactic integration processing supported by the left pSTG. These data imply that L2 fluency predicts neural resource allocation during language comprehension tasks as well as in production tasks. This study sheds light on the neural underpinnings of L2 learning by identifying the brain regions recruited during different language tasks across different modalities (production vs. comprehension). Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Linguistic Skills and Speaking Fluency in a Second Language

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De Jong, Nivja H.; Steinel, Margarita P.; Florijn, Arjen; Schoonen, Rob; Hulstijn, Jan H.

2013-01-01

This study investigated how individual differences in linguistic knowledge and processing skills relate to individual differences in speaking fluency. Speakers of Dutch as a second language ("N" = 179) performed eight speaking tasks, from which several measures of fluency were derived such as measures for pausing, repairing, and speed…

Individual Differences in Verbal and Spatial Stroop Tasks: Interactive Role of Handedness and Domain

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Mariagrazia Capizzi

2017-11-01

Full Text Available A longstanding debate in psychology concerns the relation between handedness and cognitive functioning. The present study aimed to contribute to this debate by comparing performance of right- and non-right-handers on verbal and spatial Stroop tasks. Previous studies have shown that non-right-handers have better inter-hemispheric interaction and greater access to right hemisphere processes. On this ground, we expected performance of right- and non-right-handers to differ on verbal and spatial Stroop tasks. Specifically, relative to right-handers, non-right-handers should have greater Stroop effect in the color-word Stroop task, for which inter-hemispheric interaction does not seem to be advantageous to performance. By contrast, non-right-handers should be better able to overcome interference in the spatial Stroop task. This is for their preferential access to the right hemisphere dealing with spatial material and their greater inter-hemispheric interaction with the left hemisphere hosting Stroop task processes. Our results confirmed these predictions, showing that handedness and the underlying brain asymmetries may be a useful variable to partly explain individual differences in executive functions.

Neuropsychological profiles and verbal abilities in lifelong bilinguals with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease.

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Kowoll, Magdalena Eva; Degen, Christina; Gladis, Saskia; Schröder, Johannes

2015-01-01

Bilingualism is associated with enhanced executive functioning and delayed onset of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD). Here, we investigated neuropsychological differences between mono- and bilingual patients with MCI and AD as well as the respective effects of dementia on the dominant and non-dominant language of bilinguals. 69 patients with MCI (n = 22) or AD (n = 47) and 17 healthy controls were included. 41 subjects were classified as lifelong bilinguals (mean age: 73.6; SD = 11.5) and 45 as monolinguals (mean age: 78.1; SD = 10.9). Neuropsychological performance was assessed on the CERAD-NP, the clock-drawing test, and the logical memory subscale of the Wechsler Memory Scale. Neuropsychological profiles showed only minor nonsignificant differences between mono- and bilingual subjects when compared between diagnostic groups. Bilingual MCI patients scored significantly lower on the verbal fluency and picture naming task in their dominant language than bilingual controls. Bilingual AD patients showed a reduced performance in their nondominant language when compared to bilingual MCI patients and bilingual controls (main effect language dominance: verbal fluency task p Bilingual MCI and AD patients show a similar pattern of neuropsychological deficits as monolingual patients do. The dominant language appears to be compromised first in bilingual MCI patients, while severe deficits of the nondominant language develop later in the course with manifestation of AD. These findings are important for the diagnostic work up of bilingual patients and the development of improved care concepts for bilingual patients such as migrant populations.

Neural correlates of continuous causal word generation.

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Wende, Kim C; Straube, Benjamin; Stratmann, Mirjam; Sommer, Jens; Kircher, Tilo; Nagels, Arne

2012-09-01

Causality provides a natural structure for organizing our experience and language. Causal reasoning during speech production is a distinct aspect of verbal communication, whose related brain processes are yet unknown. The aim of the current study was to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying the continuous generation of cause-and-effect coherences during overt word production. During fMRI data acquisition participants performed three verbal fluency tasks on identical cue words: A novel causal verbal fluency task (CVF), requiring the production of multiple reasons to a given cue word (e.g. reasons for heat are fire, sun etc.), a semantic (free association, FA, e.g. associations with heat are sweat, shower etc.) and a phonological control task (phonological verbal fluency, PVF, e.g. rhymes with heat are meat, wheat etc.). We found that, in contrast to PVF, both CVF and FA activated a left lateralized network encompassing inferior frontal, inferior parietal and angular regions, with further bilateral activation in middle and inferior as well as superior temporal gyri and the cerebellum. For CVF contrasted against FA, we found greater bold responses only in the left middle frontal cortex. Large overlaps in the neural activations during free association and causal verbal fluency indicate that the access to causal relationships between verbal concepts is at least partly based on the semantic neural network. The selective activation in the left middle frontal cortex for causal verbal fluency suggests that distinct neural processes related to cause-and-effect-relations are associated with the recruitment of middle frontal brain areas. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Event-Related Potential (ERP) Evidence for Fluency-Based Recognition Memory

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Leynes, P. Andrew; Zish, Kevin

2012-01-01

Two experiments investigated the influence of perceptual fluency on recognition memory. Words were studied using a shallow encoding task to decrease the contribution of recollection on recognition. Fluency was manipulated by blurring half of the test probes. Clarity varied randomly across trials in one experiment and was grouped into two blocks…

Elevated stress is associated with prefrontal cortex dysfunction during a verbal memory task in women with HIV.

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Rubin, Leah H; Wu, Minjie; Sundermann, Erin E; Meyer, Vanessa J; Smith, Rachael; Weber, Kathleen M; Cohen, Mardge H; Little, Deborah M; Maki, Pauline M

2016-12-01

HIV-infected women may be particularly vulnerable to verbal learning and memory deficits. One factor contributing to these deficits is high perceived stress, which is associated with prefrontal cortical (PFC) atrophy and memory outcomes sensitive to PFC function, including retrieval and semantic clustering. We examined the association between stress and PFC activation during a verbal memory task in 36 HIV-infected women from the Chicago Consortium of the Women's Interagency HIV Study (WIHS) to better understand the role of the PFC in this stress-related impairment. Participants completed standardized measures of verbal learning and memory and stress (perceived stress scale-10). We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to assess brain function while participants completed encoding and recognition phases of a verbal memory task. HIV-infected women with higher stress (scores in top tertile) performed worse on all verbal memory outcomes including strategic encoding (p stress (scores in lower two tertiles). Patterns of brain activation during recognition (but not encoding) differed between women with higher vs. lower stress. During recognition, women with higher stress demonstrated greater deactivation in medial PFC and posterior cingulate cortex compared to women with lower stress (p stress might alter the function of the medial PFC in HIV-infected women resulting in less efficient strategic retrieval and deficits in verbal memory.

Mandarin functional MRI Language paradigms

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Ci, He; van Graan, Andre; Gonz?lvez, Gloria; Thompson, Pamela; Hill, Andrea; Duncan, John S.

2016-01-01

Abstract Objective The objective of this study was to implement convenient, fast, and accurate Mandarin task paradigms for functional MRI, and to locate the Chinese language functional areas in frontal and temporal lobes. Materials and Methods Nineteen healthy Chinese volunteers participated in this study, which utilized a block design with four language tasks: auditory naming (AN), picture naming (PN), verbal fluency?character (VFC), and verbal fluency?letter (VFL). All functional images wer...

Rethinking spoken fluency

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McCarthy, Michael

2009-01-01

This article re-examines the notion of spoken fluency. Fluent and fluency are terms commonly used in everyday, lay language, and fluency, or lack of it, has social consequences. The article reviews the main approaches to understanding and measuring spoken fluency and suggest that spoken fluency is best understood as an interactive achievement, and offers the metaphor of ‘confluence’ to replace the term fluency. Many measures of spoken fluency are internal and monologue-based, whereas evidence...

Working memory influences processing speed and reading fluency in ADHD.

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Jacobson, Lisa A; Ryan, Matthew; Martin, Rebecca B; Ewen, Joshua; Mostofsky, Stewart H; Denckla, Martha B; Mahone, E Mark

2011-01-01

Processing-speed deficits affect reading efficiency, even among individuals who recognize and decode words accurately. Children with ADHD who decode words accurately can still have inefficient reading fluency, leading to a bottleneck in other cognitive processes. This "slowing" in ADHD is associated with deficits in fundamental components of executive function underlying processing speed, including response selection. The purpose of the present study was to deconstruct processing speed in order to determine which components of executive control best explain the "processing" speed deficits related to reading fluency in ADHD. Participants (41 ADHD, 21 controls), ages 9-14 years, screened for language disorders, word reading deficits, and psychiatric disorders, were administered measures of copying speed, processing speed, reading fluency, working memory, reaction time, inhibition, and auditory attention span. Compared to controls, children with ADHD showed reduced oral and silent reading fluency and reduced processing speed-driven primarily by deficits on WISC-IV Coding. In contrast, groups did not differ on copying speed. After controlling for copying speed, sex, severity of ADHD-related symptomatology, and GAI, slowed "processing" speed (i.e., Coding) was significantly associated with verbal span and measures of working memory but not with measures of response control/inhibition, lexical retrieval speed, reaction time, or intrasubject variability. Further, "processing" speed (i.e., Coding, residualized for copying speed) and working memory were significant predictors of oral reading fluency. Abnormalities in working memory and response selection (which are frontally mediated and enter into the output side of processing speed) may play an important role in deficits in reading fluency in ADHD, potentially more than posteriorally mediated problems with orienting of attention or perceiving the stimulus.

Developmental, Component-Based Model of Reading Fluency: An Investigation of Predictors of Word-Reading Fluency, Text-Reading Fluency, and Reading Comprehension.

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Kim, Young-Suk Grace

2015-01-01

The primary goal was to expand our understanding of text reading fluency (efficiency or automaticity)-how its relation to other constructs (e.g., word reading fluency and reading comprehension) changes over time and how it is different from word reading fluency and reading comprehension. We examined (1) developmentally changing relations among word reading fluency, listening comprehension, text reading fluency, and reading comprehension; (2) the relation of reading comprehension to text reading fluency; (3) unique emergent literacy predictors (i.e., phonological awareness, orthographic awareness, morphological awareness, letter name knowledge, vocabulary) of text reading fluency vs. word reading fluency; and (4) unique language and cognitive predictors (e.g., vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, theory of mind) of text reading fluency vs. reading comprehension. These questions were addressed using longitudinal data (two timepoints; Mean age = 5;24 & 6;08) from Korean-speaking children ( N = 143). Results showed that listening comprehension was related to text reading fluency at time 2, but not at time 1. At both times text reading fluency was related to reading comprehension, and reading comprehension was related to text reading fluency over and above word reading fluency and listening comprehension. Orthographic awareness was related to text reading fluency over and above other emergent literacy skills and word reading fluency. Vocabulary and grammatical knowledge were independently related to text reading fluency and reading comprehension whereas theory of mind was related to reading comprehension, but not text reading fluency. These results reveal developmental nature of relations and mechanism of text reading fluency in reading development.

Brain bases of reading fluency in typical reading and impaired fluency in dyslexia.

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Joanna A Christodoulou

Full Text Available Although the neural systems supporting single word reading are well studied, there are limited direct comparisons between typical and dyslexic readers of the neural correlates of reading fluency. Reading fluency deficits are a persistent behavioral marker of dyslexia into adulthood. The current study identified the neural correlates of fluent reading in typical and dyslexic adult readers, using sentences presented in a word-by-word format in which single words were presented sequentially at fixed rates. Sentences were presented at slow, medium, and fast rates, and participants were asked to decide whether each sentence did or did not make sense semantically. As presentation rates increased, participants became less accurate and slower at making judgments, with comprehension accuracy decreasing disproportionately for dyslexic readers. In-scanner performance on the sentence task correlated significantly with standardized clinical measures of both reading fluency and phonological awareness. Both typical readers and readers with dyslexia exhibited widespread, bilateral increases in activation that corresponded to increases in presentation rate. Typical readers exhibited significantly larger gains in activation as a function of faster presentation rates than readers with dyslexia in several areas, including left prefrontal and left superior temporal regions associated with semantic retrieval and semantic and phonological representations. Group differences were more extensive when behavioral differences between conditions were equated across groups. These findings suggest a brain basis for impaired reading fluency in dyslexia, specifically a failure of brain regions involved in semantic retrieval and semantic and phonological representations to become fully engaged for comprehension at rapid reading rates.

The Impact of Task-supported Interactive Feedback on the Accuracy, Fluency, and Organization of Iranian EFL Learners’ Writing

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Zohreh Seifoori

2012-05-01

Full Text Available Controversy has not been yet resolved among researchers in second language research over the pedagogical efficacy of feedback in enhancing various features of learners’ writing skill. Research findings highlighting the significance of interactive tasks and learners’ engagement in improving the learning process stimulated the present study, the purpose of which was to explore the effect of task-supported interactive feedback on the accuracy, fluency, and organization of seventy two Iranian English major sophomores at Islamic Azad University-Mashhad Branch. It was hypothesized that engaging learners in both tasks and providing feedback would enhance their writing performance. The participants in three intact classes were randomly assigned to three groups: a control group, with no task (NTG, and two experimental groups: the task-supported group (TG, and the task-supported group with interactive feedback (TFG. Four one way analyses of variance tests were run on the research data indicated that the apparent gain in the task-supported interactive group over the other groups did not reach significance level. However, the TG group outperformed the control group in all three aspects of writing. The findings have pedagogical implications and can be interpreted in terms of socio-cultural characteristics of Iranian students.

Fluency Effects in Recognition Memory: Are Perceptual Fluency and Conceptual Fluency Interchangeable?

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Lanska, Meredith; Olds, Justin M.; Westerman, Deanne L.

2014-01-01

On a recognition memory test, both perceptual and conceptual fluency can engender a sense of familiarity and elicit recognition memory illusions. To date, perceptual and conceptual fluency have been studied separately but are they interchangeable in terms of their influence on recognition judgments? Five experiments compared the effect of…

Developmental, Component-Based Model of Reading Fluency: An Investigation of Predictors of Word-Reading Fluency, Text-Reading Fluency, and Reading Comprehension

OpenAIRE

Kim, Young-Suk Grace

2015-01-01

The primary goal was to expand our understanding of text reading fluency (efficiency or automaticity)—how its relation to other constructs (e.g., word reading fluency and reading comprehension) changes over time and how it is different from word reading fluency and reading comprehension. We examined (1) developmentally changing relations among word reading fluency, listening comprehension, text reading fluency, and reading comprehension; (2) the relation of reading comprehension to text readi...

Sleep Strengthens but does Not Reorganize Memory Traces in a Verbal Creativity Task.

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Landmann, Nina; Kuhn, Marion; Maier, Jonathan-Gabriel; Feige, Bernd; Spiegelhalder, Kai; Riemann, Dieter; Nissen, Christoph

2016-03-01

Sleep after learning promotes the quantitative strengthening of new memories. Less is known about the impact of sleep on the qualitative reorganization of memory content. This study tested the hypothesis that sleep facilitates both memory strengthening and reorganization as indexed by a verbal creativity task. Sixty healthy university students (30 female, 30 male, 20-30 years) were investigated in a randomized, controlled parallel-group study with three experimental groups (sleep, sleep deprivation, daytime wakefulness). At baseline, 60 items of the Compound Remote Associate (CRA) task were presented. At retest after the experimental conditions, the same items were presented again together with 20 new control items to disentangle off-line incubation from online performance effects. Sleep significantly strengthened formerly encoded memories in comparison to both wake conditions (improvement in speed of correctly resolved items). Offline reorganization was not enhanced following sleep, but was enhanced following sleep-deprivation in comparison to sleep and daytime wakefulness (solution time of previously incubated, newly solved items). Online performance did not differ between the groups (solution time of new control items). The results support the notion that sleep promotes the strengthening, but not the reorganization, of newly encoded memory traces in a verbal creativity task. Future studies are needed to further determine the impact of sleep on different types of memory reorganization, such as associative thinking, creativity and emotional memory processing, and potential clinical translations, such as the augmentation of psychotherapy through sleep interventions. © 2016 Associated Professional Sleep Societies, LLC.

Are factors related to dual-task performance in people with Parkinson's disease dependent on the type of dual task?

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Strouwen, Carolien; Molenaar, Esther A L M; Keus, Samyra H J; Münks, Liesbeth; Heremans, Elke; Vandenberghe, Wim; Bloem, Bastiaan R; Nieuwboer, Alice

2016-02-01

Impaired dual-task performance significantly impacts upon functional mobility in people with Parkinson's disease (PD). The aim of this study was to identify determinants of dual-task performance in people with PD in three different dual tasks to assess their possible task-dependency. We recruited 121 home-dwelling patients with PD (mean age 65.93 years; mean disease duration 8.67 years) whom we subjected to regular walking (control condition) and to three dual-task conditions: walking combined with a backwards Digit Span task, an auditory Stroop task and a Mobile Phone task. We measured dual-task gait velocity using the GAITRite mat and dual-task reaction times and errors on the concurrent tasks as outcomes. Motor, cognitive and descriptive variables which correlated to dual-task performance (p task gait velocity and executive function, tested by the alternating intake test, was significantly associated with gait velocity during the Digit Span (R(2) = 0.65; p task (R(2) = 0.62; p task. Age was a surplus determinant of gait velocity while using a mobile phone. Single-task gait velocity and executive function as measured by a verbal fluency switching task were independent determinants of dual-task gait performance in people with PD. In contrast to expectation, these factors were the same across different tasks, supporting the robustness of the findings. Future study needs to determine whether these factors predict dual-task abnormalities prospectively. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Case Study Using SAFMEDS to Promote Fluency with Skinner's Verbal Behavior Terms

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Stockwell, Fawna; Eshlelman, John

2010-01-01

Using a deck of 60 Say All Fast a Minute Every Day Shuffled (SAFMEDS) cards, a learner established a fluent verbal repertoire related to the key terms of Skinner's (1957) analysis of verbal behavior. This learner was required to see the phrase printed on the front of the card and to say the term printed on the back. Regular timings were recorded…

Associations between physical function, dual-task performance and cognition in patients with mild Alzheimer's disease

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sobol, Nanna Aue; Hoffmann, Kristine; Vogel, Asmus Mejling

2016-01-01

blinded multicenter RCT 'ADEX' (Alzheimer's disease: the effect of physical exercise) were used. Assessments included tests of physical function: 400-m walk test, 10-m walk test, Timed Up and Go test and 30-s chair stand test; dual-task performance, i.e., 10-m walk while counting backwards from 50...... or naming the months backwards; and cognition, i.e., Mini Mental State Examination, Symbol Digit Modalities Test, the Stroop Color and Word Test, and Lexical verbal fluency test. RESULTS: Results in the 30-s chair stand test correlated significantly with all tests of cognition (r = .208-.242) while...

Modulating phonemic fluency performance in healthy subjects with transcranial magnetic stimulation over the left or right lateral frontal cortex.

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Smirni, Daniela; Turriziani, Patrizia; Mangano, Giuseppa Renata; Bracco, Martina; Oliveri, Massimiliano; Cipolotti, Lisa

2017-07-28

A growing body of evidence have suggested that non-invasive brain stimulation techniques, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), can improve the performance of aphasic patients in language tasks. For example, application of inhibitory rTMS or tDCs over the right frontal lobe of dysphasic patients resulted in improved naming abilities. Several studies have also reported that in healthy controls (HC) tDCS application over the left prefrontal cortex (PFC) improve performance in naming and semantic fluency tasks. The aim of this study was to investigate in HC, for the first time, the effects of inhibitory repetitive TMS (rTMS) over left and right lateral frontal cortex (BA 47) on two phonemic fluency tasks (FAS or FPL). 44 right-handed HCs were administered rTMS or sham over the left or right lateral frontal cortex in two separate testing sessions, with a 24h interval, followed by the two phonemic fluency tasks. To account for possible practice effects, an additional 22 HCs were tested on only the phonemic fluency task across two sessions with no stimulation. We found that rTMS-inhibition over the left lateral frontal cortex significantly worsened phonemic fluency performance when compared to sham. In contrast, rTMS-inhibition over the right lateral frontal cortex significantly improved phonemic fluency performance when compared to sham. These results were not accounted for practice effects. We speculated that rTMS over the right lateral frontal cortex may induce plastic neural changes to the left lateral frontal cortex by suppressing interhemispheric inhibitory interactions. This resulted in an increased excitability (disinhibition) of the contralateral unstimulated left lateral frontal cortex, consequently enhancing phonemic fluency performance. Conversely, application of rTMS over the left lateral frontal cortex may induce a temporary, virtual lesion, with effects similar to those reported in left frontal

Functional magnetic resonance imaging study of neuronal activation during cognitive tasks related to frontal lobe functions in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Koizumi, Hazuki

2010-01-01

Previous neurological studies and brain activation studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (f-MRI) have suggested frontal lobe dysfunctions in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, no f-MRI study has used cognitive tasks reflecting fluency of ideas and memory related to frontal lobe functions. The purposes of this study are to assess the neuropsychological examinations and brain activities of OCD patients using f-MRI, as well as, to investigate the relationship between the severity of obsessive-compulsive symptoms and frontal lobe functions. The subjects were 22 right-handed persons consisting of 11 outpatients who had received a diagnosis of OCD based on diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders-fourth edition (DMS-IV) and age- and sex-matched 11 healthy controls. All subjects were examined using Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS), Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-3 rd edition (WAIS-III), Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), Modified Stroop Test (MST), Verbal Fluency Test (VFT), Idea Fluency Test (IFT), and Rey-Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT). The brain activities were measured with f-MRI during three cognitive tasks; Task 1: idea generation (IFT), Task 2: word generation (VFT), and Task 3: remembrance of words (RAVLT). The block design was used in the trials, in which rest and activating tasks were alternated for five times in each task. The neuropsychological examinations revealed significant differences in the numbers of categories achieved and total errors in WCST, times of Part I in MST, scores of VFT and IFT, and the results of RAVLT between the OCD patients and healthy controls. Using functional brain imaging with f-MRI, noticeable activations were found in the superior, middle, inferior frontal gyri, and the cingulate gyrus during all tasks in both the OCD and control groups. The OCD patients had significantly higher activation in the cingulate gyrus than normal controls during Task 1 (IFT

[Motivation effect on power changes in the brain biopotentials in the figurative and verbal creativity tasks].

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Razumnikova, O M; Vol'f, N V; Tarasova, I V

2007-01-01

Effect of extrinsic motivation stimulating the most original problem solving during verbal and figurative divergent thinking was studied by EEG mapping. The righthanded university students (27 males and 26 females) participated in the experiments. An instruction "to create the most original solution" as compared to condition with an instruction "to create any solution" induced an increase in the baseline power of the alpha 1 and alpha 2 rhythms most pronounced in the posterior cortex. Task-related desynchronization of the alpha rhythms was higher but the beta-2 synchronization was lower after the former than after the latter instruction. Differences in the asymmetry of the alpha 1 and alpha 2 rhythms in the parietal and temporal regions of hemispheres suggested the right hemisphere dominance in intrinsic alertness and evoked activation related to divergent thinking. The findings were common and gender-independent in both figurative and verbal tasks suggesting a generalized influence of extrinsic motivation on creative activity.

Influence of Verbal Working Memory Depends on Vocabulary: Oral Reading Fluency in Adolescents with Dyslexia

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Rose, L. Todd; Rouhani, Parisa

2012-01-01

Most research on dyslexia to date has focused on early childhood, while comparatively little is known about the nature of dyslexia in adolescence. The current study had two objectives. The first was to investigate the relative contributions of several cognitive and linguistic factors to connected-text oral reading fluency in a sample of…

Impact of Cover, Copy, and Compare on Fluency Outcomes for Students with Disabilities and Math Deficits: A Review of the Literature

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Stocker, James D., Jr.; Kubina, Richard M., Jr.

2017-01-01

Fluency, a combination of response accuracy and speed, enables students to work efficiently through academic tasks. Students with disabilities and math deficits often struggle to learn math facts fluently. Although issues with fluency frequently coexist with a disability, problems gaining fluency also stem from a lack of practice and appropriate…

Distinguishing familiarity from fluency for the compound word pair effect in associative recognition.

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Ahmad, Fahad N; Hockley, William E

2017-09-01

We examined whether processing fluency contributes to associative recognition of unitized pre-experimental associations. In Experiments 1A and 1B, we minimized perceptual fluency by presenting each word of pairs on separate screens at both study and test, yet the compound word (CW) effect (i.e., hit and false-alarm rates greater for CW pairs with no difference in discrimination) did not reduce. In Experiments 2A and 2B, conceptual fluency was examined by comparing transparent (e.g., hand bag) and opaque (e.g., rag time) CW pairs in lexical decision and associative recognition tasks. Lexical decision was faster for transparent CWs (Experiment 2A) but in associative recognition, the CW effect did not differ by CW pair type (Experiment 2B). In Experiments 3A and 3B, we examined whether priming that increases processing fluency would influence the CW effect. In Experiment 3A, CW and non-compound word pairs were preceded with matched and mismatched primes at test in an associative recognition task. In Experiment 3B, only transparent and opaque CW pairs were presented. Results showed that presenting matched versus mismatched primes at test did not influence the CW effect. The CW effect in yes-no associative recognition is due to reliance on enhanced familiarity of unitized CW pairs.

Coping with stress in adults with speech fluency disorders

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Magdalena Pietraszek

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Background Stuttering is a developmental speech disorder that affects the fluency of speech. Persons who stutter perceive speaking situations and social interactions as threatening. Participants and procedure Nineteen (47.50% adults with speech fluency disorders (SFD and 21 (52.50% without participated in the study. All participants completed the following measures individually: the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS, and an informational survey. Results Our study confirmed that persons with SFD experience more stressful situations in life and feel greater anxiety, both as a trait and as a state, which influences their daily life. The negative affect experienced contributed to their preferred use of Emotion-Oriented Coping strategies, at the expense of more proactive Task-Oriented Coping. Experienced stress and anxiety influenced and consolidated their habitual stress coping styles, devoted mainly to dealing with negative emotions. Conclusions Stuttering affects daily activities, interpersonal relationships, and the quality of life. Therefore, professional support should include adaptive, task-oriented coping.

The Monkey game: A computerized verbal working memory task for self-reliant administration in primary school children.

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Van de Weijer-Bergsma, Eva; Kroesbergen, Evelyn H; Jolani, Shahab; Van Luit, Johannes E H

2016-06-01

In two studies, the psychometric properties of an online self-reliant verbal working memory task (the Monkey game) for primary school children (6-12 years of age) were examined. In Study 1, children (n = 5,203) from 31 primary schools participated. The participants completed computerized verbal and visual-spatial working memory tasks (i.e., the Monkey game and the Lion game) and a paper-and-pencil version of Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices. Reading comprehension and math achievement test scores were obtained from the schools. First, the internal consistency of the Monkey game was examined. Second, multilevel modeling was used to examine the effects of classroom membership. Multilevel multivariate regression analysis was used to examine the Monkey game's concurrent relationship with the Lion game and its predictive relationships with reading comprehension and math achievement. Also, age-related differences in performance were examined. In Study 2, the concurrent relationships between the Monkey game and two tester-led computerized working memory tasks were further examined (n = 140). Also, the 1- and 2-year stability of the Monkey game was investigated. The Monkey game showed excellent internal consistency, good concurrent relationships with the other working memory measures, and significant age differences in performance. Performance on the Monkey game was also predictive of subsequent reading comprehension and mathematics performance, even after controlling for individual differences in intelligence. Performance on the Monkey game was influenced by classroom membership. The Monkey game is a reliable and suitable instrument for the online computerized and self-reliant assessment of verbal working memory in primary school children.

Language networks associated with computerized semantic indices.

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Pakhomov, Serguei V S; Jones, David T; Knopman, David S

2015-01-01

Tests of generative semantic verbal fluency are widely used to study organization and representation of concepts in the human brain. Previous studies demonstrated that clustering and switching behavior during verbal fluency tasks is supported by multiple brain mechanisms associated with semantic memory and executive control. Previous work relied on manual assessments of semantic relatedness between words and grouping of words into semantic clusters. We investigated a computational linguistic approach to measuring the strength of semantic relatedness between words based on latent semantic analysis of word co-occurrences in a subset of a large online encyclopedia. We computed semantic clustering indices and compared them to brain network connectivity measures obtained with task-free fMRI in a sample consisting of healthy participants and those differentially affected by cognitive impairment. We found that semantic clustering indices were associated with brain network connectivity in distinct areas including fronto-temporal, fronto-parietal and fusiform gyrus regions. This study shows that computerized semantic indices complement traditional assessments of verbal fluency to provide a more complete account of the relationship between brain and verbal behavior involved organization and retrieval of lexical information from memory. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Selective cognitive impairments associated with NMDA receptor blockade in humans.

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Rowland, Laura M; Astur, Robert S; Jung, Rex E; Bustillo, Juan R; Lauriello, John; Yeo, Ronald A

2005-03-01

Hypofunction of the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) may be involved in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. NMDAR antagonists like ketamine induce schizophrenia-like features in humans. In rodent studies, NMDAR antagonism impairs learning by disrupting long-term potentiation (LTP) in the hippocampus. This study investigated the effects of ketamine on spatial learning (acquisition) vs retrieval in a virtual Morris water task in humans. Verbal fluency, working memory, and learning and memory of verbal information were also assessed. Healthy human subjects participated in this double-blinded, placebo-controlled study. On two separate occasions, ketamine/placebo was administered and cognitive tasks were assessed in association with behavioral ratings. Ketamine impaired learning of spatial and verbal information but retrieval of information learned prior to drug administration was preserved. Schizophrenia-like symptoms were significantly related to spatial and verbal learning performance. Ketamine did not significantly impair attention, verbal fluency, or verbal working memory task performance. Spatial working memory was slightly impaired. In conclusion, these results provide evidence for ketamine's differential impairment of verbal and spatial learning vs retrieval. By using the Morris water task, which is hippocampal-dependent, this study helps bridge the gap between nonhuman animal and human NMDAR antagonism research. Impaired cognition is a core feature of schizophrenia. A better understanding of NMDA antagonism, its physiological and cognitive consequences, may provide improved models of psychosis and cognitive therapeutics.

Relações entre controle executivo e memória episódica verbal no comprometimento cognitivo leve e na demência tipo Alzheimer Relationships between executive control and verbal episodic memory in the mild cognitive impairment and the Alzheimer-type dementia

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Amer Cavalheiro Hamdan

2005-04-01

Full Text Available Este estudo comparou e relacionou o desempenho de idosos com Comprometimento Cognitivo Leve e Demência Tipo Alzheimer em testes de controle executivo e de memória episódica verbal. Para a avaliação da memória episódica verbal utilizamos a Tarefa de Recordação de Palavras Imediata e a Tarefa de Recordação de Palavras com Intervalo. Na avaliação do controle executivo foram utilizados, os seguintes testes: Random Number Generation, Trail Making Test, Fluência Verbal semântica e fonológica, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, Reading Span Test e Brow-Peterson Test. Treze idosos do grupo controle foram equiparados quanto à idade e escolaridade com nove idosos com Comprometimento Cognitivo Leve e oito idosos com Demência Tipo Alzheimer. Foram encontradas diferenças e associações estatisticamente significantes em relação aos testes de controle executivo entre os grupos investigados. Apesar da presença de associações significativas entre a memória episódica verbal e o controle executivo, não foram evidenciados déficits do controle executivo nos idosos com Comprometimento Cognitivo Leve.This study compared and related the performance of older people with Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer-type dementia in tests of executive control and of verbal episodic memory. In the evaluation of the verbal episodic memory we used the Task of Immediate Word Recall and the Task of Delayed Word Recall. In the evaluation of executive control we used the following tests: Random Number Generation, Trail Making Test, Semantic and Phonological Verbal Fluency, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, Reading Span Test, and Brow-Peterson Test. Thirteen elders of the control group were compared by age and education with nine elders with Mild Cognitive Impairment and eight elders with Alzheimer-type dementia. Differences and significant statistical associations were found in relation to the tests of executive control with the groups investigated. Despite the

Improvement of Screening Accuracy of Mini-Mental State Examination for Mild Cognitive Impairment and Non-Alzheimer's Disease Dementia by Supplementation of Verbal Fluency Performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Jee Wook; Lee, Dong Young; Seo, Eun Hyun; Sohn, Bo Kyung; Choe, Young Min; Kim, Shin Gyeom; Park, Shin Young; Choo, Il Han; Youn, Jong Chul; Jhoo, Jin Hyeong; Kim, Ki Woong; Woo, Jong Inn

2014-01-01

THIS STUDY AIMED TO INVESTIGATE WHETHER THE SUPPLEMENTATION OF VERBAL FLUENCY: Animal category test (VF) performance can improve the screening ability of Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) for mild cognitive impairment (MCI), dementia and their major subtypes. Six hundred fifty-five cognitively normal (CN), 366 MCI [282 amnestic MCI (aMCI); 84 non-amnestic MCI (naMCI)] and 494 dementia [346 Alzheimer's disease (AD); and 148 non-Alzheimer's disease dementia (NAD)] individuals living in the community were included (all aged 50 years and older) in the study. The VF-supplemented MMSE (MMSE+VF) score had a significantly better screening ability for MCI, dementia and overall cognitive impairment (MCI plus dementia) than the MMSE raw score alone. MMSE+VF showed a significantly better ability than MMSE for both MCI subtypes, i.e., aMCI and naMCI. In the case of dementia subtypes, MMSE+VF was better than the MMSE alone for NAD screening, but not for AD screening. The results support the usefulness of VF-supplementation to improve the screening performance of MMSE for MCI and NAD.

Oral Reading Fluency as a Predictor of Silent Reading Fluency at Secondary and Postsecondary Levels

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Seok, Soonhwa; DaCosta, Boaventura

2014-01-01

This research investigated oral reading fluency as a predictor of silent reading fluency at the secondary and postsecondary levels. Several measures were used, including the Gray Oral Reading Test, the Test of Silent Word Reading Fluency, the Test of Silent Contextual Reading Fluency, and the Reading Observation Scale. A total of 223 students…

Decline in verbal fluency after subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation in Parkinson's disease: a microlesion effect of the electrode trajectory?

Science.gov (United States)

Le Goff, Floriane; Derrey, Stéphane; Lefaucheur, Romain; Borden, Alaina; Fetter, Damien; Jan, Maryvonne; Wallon, David; Maltête, David

2015-01-01

Decline in verbal fluency (VF) is frequently reported after chronic deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) in Parkinson disease (PD). We investigated whether the trajectory of the implanted electrode correlate with the VF decline 6 months after surgery. We retrospectively analysed 59 PD patients (mean age, 61.9 ± 7; mean disease duration, 13 ± 4.6) who underwent bilateral STN-DBS. The percentage of VF decline 6 months after STN-DBS in the on-drug/on-stimulation condition was determined in respect of the preoperative on-drug condition. The patients were categorised into two groups (decline and stable) for each VF. Cortical entry angles, intersection with deep grey nuclei (caudate, thalamic or pallidum), and anatomical extent of the STN affected by the electrode pathway, were compared between groups. A significant decline of both semantic and phonemic VF was found after surgery, respectively 14.9% ± 22.1 (P < 0.05) and 14.2% ± 30.3 (P < 0.05). Patients who declined in semantic VF (n = 44) had a left trajectory with a more anterior cortical entry point (56 ± 53 versus 60 ± 55 degree, P = 0.01) passing less frequently trough the thalamus (P = 0.03). Microlesion of left brain regions may contribute to subtle cognitive impairment following STN-DBS in PD.

Barriers to repeated assessment of verbal learning and memory: a comparison of international shopping list task and rey auditory verbal learning test on build-up of proactive interference.

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Rahimi-Golkhandan, S; Maruff, P; Darby, D; Wilson, P

2012-11-01

Proactive interference (PI) that remains unidentified can confound the assessment of verbal learning, particularly when its effects vary from one population to another. The International Shopping List Task (ISLT) is a new measure that provides multiple forms that can be equated for linguistic factors across cultural groups. The aim of this study was to examine the build-up of PI on two measures of verbal learning-a traditional test of list learning (Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test, RAVLT) and the ISLT. The sample consisted of 61 healthy adults aged 18-40. Each test had three parallel forms, each recalled three times. Results showed that repeated administration of the ISLT did not result in significant PI effects, unlike the RAVLT. Although these PI effects, observed during short retest intervals, may not be as robust under normal clinical administrations of the tests, the results suggest that the choice of the verbal learning test should be guided by the knowledge of PI effects and the susceptibility of particular patient groups to this effect.

Parallel effects of processing fluency and positive affect on familiarity-based recognition decisions for faces

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Devin eDuke

2014-04-01

Full Text Available According to attribution models of familiarity assessment, people can use a heuristic in recognition-memory decisions, in which they attribute the subjective ease of processing of a memory probe to a prior encounter with the stimulus in question. Research in social cognition suggests that experienced positive affect may be the proximal cue that signals fluency in various experimental contexts. In the present study, we compared the effects of positive affect and fluency on recognition-memory judgments for faces with neutral emotional expression. We predicted that if positive affect is indeed the critical cue that signals processing fluency at retrieval, then its manipulation should produce effects that closely mirror those produced by manipulations of processing fluency. In two experiments, we employed a masked-priming procedure in combination with a Remember-Know paradigm that aimed to separate familiarity- from recollection-based memory decisions. In addition, participants performed a prime-discrimination task that allowed us to take inter-individual differences in prime awareness into account. We found highly similar effects of our priming manipulations of processing fluency and of positive affect. In both cases, the critical effect was specific to familiarity-based recognition responses. Moreover, in both experiments it was reflected in a shift towards a more liberal response bias, rather than in changed discrimination. Finally, in both experiments, the effect was found to be related to prime awareness; it was present only in participants who reported a lack of such awareness on the prime-discrimination task. These findings add to a growing body of evidence that points not only to a role of fluency, but also of positive affect in familiarity assessment. As such they are consistent with the idea that fluency itself may be hedonically marked.

Parallel effects of processing fluency and positive affect on familiarity-based recognition decisions for faces.

Science.gov (United States)

Duke, Devin; Fiacconi, Chris M; Köhler, Stefan

2014-01-01

According to attribution models of familiarity assessment, people can use a heuristic in recognition-memory decisions, in which they attribute the subjective ease of processing of a memory probe to a prior encounter with the stimulus in question. Research in social cognition suggests that experienced positive affect may be the proximal cue that signals fluency in various experimental contexts. In the present study, we compared the effects of positive affect and fluency on recognition-memory judgments for faces with neutral emotional expression. We predicted that if positive affect is indeed the critical cue that signals processing fluency at retrieval, then its manipulation should produce effects that closely mirror those produced by manipulations of processing fluency. In two experiments, we employed a masked-priming procedure in combination with a Remember-Know (RK) paradigm that aimed to separate familiarity- from recollection-based memory decisions. In addition, participants performed a prime-discrimination task that allowed us to take inter-individual differences in prime awareness into account. We found highly similar effects of our priming manipulations of processing fluency and of positive affect. In both cases, the critical effect was specific to familiarity-based recognition responses. Moreover, in both experiments it was reflected in a shift toward a more liberal response bias, rather than in changed discrimination. Finally, in both experiments, the effect was found to be related to prime awareness; it was present only in participants who reported a lack of such awareness on the prime-discrimination task. These findings add to a growing body of evidence that points not only to a role of fluency, but also of positive affect in familiarity assessment. As such they are consistent with the idea that fluency itself may be hedonically marked.

How verbal memory loads consume attention

OpenAIRE

Chen, Zhijian; Cowan, Nelson

2009-01-01

According to a traditional assumption about working memory, participants retain a series of verbal items for immediate recall using covert verbal rehearsal, without much need for attention. We reassessed this assumption by imposing a speeded, nonverbal choice reaction time (CRT) task following the presentation of each digit in a list to be recalled. When the memory load surpassed a few items, performance on the speeded CRT task became increasingly impaired. This CRT task impairment depended o...

On some verbal short-term and working memory properties in patients suffering from clinical depression

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Lalović Dejan

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Clinical depression with verbal short-term memory relation research does not yield unequivocal results. While short-term memory (STM deficits in depressed patients are consistently displayed in working memory (WM and executive attention tasks, for STM passive memorizing tasks this holds less correct. Objective. Primary goal was to collect initial data on depressed patients treated in Serbian institutions WM/ STM. In addition, we estimated the power of WAIS IV WM subtests to discriminate depressed patients from normal subjects. Method. Depressed patients' sample was contrasted with the parallel group in WAIS' IV Arithmetic, Digit Span, and Letter- Number Sequencing; free word recall task, semantic fluency task, without and with category switching. Results. All the WM measures, with the exception of Digit Span Backward score, discriminate depressed from no depressed subjects. On the other hand, STM tasks, with the exception of short-term word free recall, fail to do the same. We suggest explanation for both the exceptions in terms of WM efficiency. WAIS IV Arithmetic, Digit Span Sequencing and Letter-Number Sequencing can be used to discriminate depressed from control subjects. Performance in STM/WM tasks is in moderate to strong negative correlation with depression severity as assessed with the Hamilton scale. Conclusion. STM deficits in the depressed are likely to be observed in tasks requiring executive attention and WM efficiency rather than in standard STM span tasks. The deficits are inertly related to depression severity.

THE CONTRIBUTION OF COMPLEXITY, ACCURACY AND FLUENCY TO LANGUAGE FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES

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Anthony Rausch

2016-03-01

Full Text Available This paper will outline an instructional approach that proposes a Complexity, Accuracy, Fluency (CAF paradigm as a means of providing learners with the CAF-based communication consciousness and CAF-oriented manipulative skills that are increasingly important in language use in Language for Specific Purposes. Given the complex combinations of communicative tasks, communicative formats and communicative circumstances that accompany the wide-ranging and various contexts of contemporary professional communication, communicative competence demands a combinative consciousness and informed application of Complexity, Accuracy and Fluency as a communication paradigm. Viewed as a combination of its three components, a CAF paradigm constitutes a fundamental ‘information, language and communication’ triad that can guide professional language use in any communicative circumstance. Viewed as a communicative skill set, the CAF triad implies the capability to adjust specific elements and aspects of information, language and communication as needed for a communicative task, whether in oral or print communication and regardless of task category. Adjusting complexity in this context refers to both content and language complexity. Adjusting accuracy refers to the conventions that dictate appropriate or acceptable language in a given context. Finally, adjusting fluency refers to a sense of communicative fluency, that which yields either smooth and persuasive language as in a native-speaker normative view or explicit and clearly explanatory language as necessary in some communicative encounters. The need to manipulate these three components depends on circumstance variables such as objective, available time, audience characteristics and the degree of detail desired. This paper will outline this combinative CAF notion as background to a materials development project being undertaken in a Japanese university, introducing the specifics of an Extended Reading Aloud

Can verbal instruction enhance the recall of an everyday task and promote error-monitoring in people with dementia of the Alzheimer-type?

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Balouch, Sara; Rusted, Jennifer M

2017-03-01

People with dementia of the Alzheimer-type (DAT) have difficulties with performing everyday tasks, and error awareness is poor. Here we investigate whether recall of actions and error monitoring in everyday task performance improved when they instructed another person on how to make tea. In this situation, both visual and motor cues are present, and attention is sustained by the requirement to keep instructing. The data were drawn from a longitudinal study recording performance in four participants with DAT, filmed regularly for five years in their own homes, completing three tea-making conditions: performed-recall (they made tea themselves); instructed-recall (they instructed the experimenter on how to make tea); and verbal-recall (they described how to make tea). Accomplishment scores (percentage of task they correctly recalled), errors and error-monitoring were coded. Task accomplishment was comparable in the performed-recall and instructed-recall conditions, but both were significantly better than task accomplishment in the verbal-recall condition. Third person instruction did not improve error-monitoring. This study has implications for everyday task rehabilitation for people with DAT.

Fronto-parietal and fronto-temporal theta phase synchronization for visual and auditory-verbal working memory.

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Kawasaki, Masahiro; Kitajo, Keiichi; Yamaguchi, Yoko

2014-01-01

In humans, theta phase (4-8 Hz) synchronization observed on electroencephalography (EEG) plays an important role in the manipulation of mental representations during working memory (WM) tasks; fronto-temporal synchronization is involved in auditory-verbal WM tasks and fronto-parietal synchronization is involved in visual WM tasks. However, whether or not theta phase synchronization is able to select the to-be-manipulated modalities is uncertain. To address the issue, we recorded EEG data from subjects who were performing auditory-verbal and visual WM tasks; we compared the theta synchronizations when subjects performed either auditory-verbal or visual manipulations in separate WM tasks, or performed both two manipulations in the same WM task. The auditory-verbal WM task required subjects to calculate numbers presented by an auditory-verbal stimulus, whereas the visual WM task required subjects to move a spatial location in a mental representation in response to a visual stimulus. The dual WM task required subjects to manipulate auditory-verbal, visual, or both auditory-verbal and visual representations while maintaining auditory-verbal and visual representations. Our time-frequency EEG analyses revealed significant fronto-temporal theta phase synchronization during auditory-verbal manipulation in both auditory-verbal and auditory-verbal/visual WM tasks, but not during visual manipulation tasks. Similarly, we observed significant fronto-parietal theta phase synchronization during visual manipulation tasks, but not during auditory-verbal manipulation tasks. Moreover, we observed significant synchronization in both the fronto-temporal and fronto-parietal theta signals during simultaneous auditory-verbal/visual manipulations. These findings suggest that theta synchronization seems to flexibly connect the brain areas that manipulate WM.

Fronto-parietal and fronto-temporal theta phase synchronization for visual and auditory-verbal working memory

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Masahiro eKawasaki

2014-03-01

Full Text Available In humans, theta phase (4–8 Hz synchronization observed on electroencephalography (EEG plays an important role in the manipulation of mental representations during working memory (WM tasks; fronto-temporal synchronization is involved in auditory-verbal WM tasks and fronto-parietal synchronization is involved in visual WM tasks. However, whether or not theta phase synchronization is able to select the to-be-manipulated modalities is uncertain. To address the issue, we recorded EEG data from subjects who were performing auditory-verbal and visual WM tasks; we compared the theta synchronizations when subjects performed either auditory-verbal or visual manipulations in separate WM tasks, or performed both two manipulations in the same WM task. The auditory-verbal WM task required subjects to calculate numbers presented by an auditory-verbal stimulus, whereas the visual WM task required subjects to move a spatial location in a mental representation in response to a visual stimulus. The dual WM task required subjects to manipulate auditory-verbal, visual, or both auditory-verbal and visual representations while maintaining auditory-verbal and visual representations. Our time-frequency EEG analyses revealed significant fronto-temporal theta phase synchronization during auditory-verbal manipulation in both auditory-verbal and auditory-verbal/visual WM tasks, but not during visual manipulation tasks. Similarly, we observed significant fronto-parietal theta phase synchronization during visual manipulation tasks, but not during auditory-verbal manipulation tasks. Moreover, we observed significant synchronization in both the fronto-temporal and fronto-parietal theta signals during simultaneous auditory-verbal/visual manipulations. These findings suggest that theta synchronization seems to flexibly connect the brain areas that manipulate WM.

[Intelligence and creativity changes induced by pathological growth of space-occupying cerebral lesion].

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Perfil'ev, A M; Razumnikova, O M; Stupak, V V

2013-01-01

Creativity and intelligence changes depending on tumor localization in frontal or parietal cortex before surgical procedure in 24 patients in comparison with control group are studied. Brain damage-induced intelligence impairment and a decrease of fluency, flexibility of figural divergent thinking, and originality of verbal one without specificity of tumor localization were found. Intelligence decrease was more presented while performing of figural tasks and least of all in verbal ones. The left prefrontal brain damage induced a decrease of all components of intelligence and a trend to a decrease of verbal creativity and figural fluency. The right parietal brain lesion was more associated with a decline of divergent thinking originality.

Relationship between the prefrontal function and the severity of the emotional symptoms during a verbal fluency task in patients with major depressive disorder: a multi-channel NIRS study.

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Liu, Xiaomin; Sun, Gaoxiang; Zhang, Xiaoqian; Xu, Bo; Shen, Chenyu; Shi, Lujie; Ma, Xiangyun; Ren, Xiajin; Feng, Kun; Liu, Pozi

2014-10-03

Multi-channel near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a noninvasive and low-cost functional neuroimaging technique in psychiatric research, and it has been wildly used for detecting the spatiotemporal characteristics of brain activity. In order to evaluate the clinical value of NIRS data in the assistant diagnosis of major depressive disorder (MDD), prefrontal cortex (PFC) hemoglobin concentration exchange of 30 MDD patients combined with anxious and obsessive-compulsive symptom was detected by NIRS under voice fluency task (VFT), then the relationship between the severity of depressive, anxious and obsessive-compulsive symptom assessed by Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAMD), Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAMA) and Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) with NIRS data in PFC was analyzed. Hypoactivation in lateral and lower PFC of MDD patients was confirmed in this study. Furthermore, Spearman correlation found that oxy-hemoglobin concentration ([oxy-Hb]) exchange in right-lateral PFC was associated with the severity of anxiety, while bilateral PFC and antero-medial PFC were associated with severity of depression. Meanwhile, no statistical correlation was observed on the severity of obsessive-compulsive symptom. The results prompted that MDD patients with anxiety and obsession-compulsion symptom showed a PFC hypoactivation state in NIRS. Furthermore, the function of right-lateral PFC was associated with anxiety symptom, while bilateral PFC and antero-medial PFC were associated with depression symptom. Different from depression and anxiety, obsession-compulsion may have a different biological character in PFC function. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Reframing less conventional speech to disrupt conventions of "compulsory fluency": A conversation analysis approach

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Camille Duque

2018-05-01

Full Text Available Our purpose is to illuminate compliances with, and resistances to, what we are calling "compulsory fluency" which we define as conventions for what constitutes competent speech. We achieve our purpose through a study of day-to-day communication between a woman with less conventional speech and her support providing family members and friends. Drawing from McRuer's (2006 compulsory ablebodiedness and Kafer's (2013 compulsory able-mindedness, we use "compulsory fluency" to refer to a form of articulation that is standardized and idealized and imposed on all speakers including those whose speech is less conventional. We see compulsory fluency as central to North American conceptions of personhood which are tied to individual ability to speak for one's self (Brueggemann, 2005. In this paper, we trace some North American principles for linguistic competence to outline widely held ideals of receptive and expressive language use, namely, conventions for how language should be understood and expressed. Using Critical Disability Studies (Goodley, 2013; McRuer, 2006 together with a feminist framework of relational autonomy (Nedelsky, 1989, our goal is to focus on experiences of people with less conventional speech and draw attention to power in communication as it flows in idiosyncratic and intersubjective fashion (Mackenzie & Stoljar, 2000; Westlund, 2009. In other words, we use a critical disability and feminist framing to call attention to less conventional forms of communication competence and, in this process, we challenge assumptions about what constitutes competent speech. As part of a larger qualitative study, we conduct a conversation analysis informed by Rapley and Antaki (1996 to examine day-to-day verbal, vocal and non-verbal communications of a young woman who self identifies as "having autism" - pseudonym Addison - in interaction with her support-providing family members and friends. We illustrate a multitude of Addison's compliances with

Short-Term Memory Skills in Children with Specific Language Impairment: The Effect of Verbal and Nonverbal Task Content

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Botting, Nicola; Psarou, Popi; Caplin, Tamara; Nevin, Laura

2013-01-01

Background and Design: In recent years, evidence has emerged that suggests specific language impairment (SLI) does not exclusively affect linguistic skill. Studies have revealed memory difficulties, including those measured using nonverbal tasks. However, there has been relatively little research into the nature of the verbal/nonverbal boundaries…

Assessment of Working Memory in Individuals With Stuttering in Comparison With Individuals With Normal Fluency

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Aiswarya Liz Varghese

2018-05-01

Full Text Available It is common in literature to relate stuttering with some other deficit that interferes with communicative functions. Working memory comprises the system of human memory dedicated to both temporary storages of phonological detail and allocation of cognitive resources necessary for forming lasting memories. In this study we have analyzed the performance of individuals with stuttering on various working memory tasks. The aim of study is to compare the working memory abilities in individuals with stuttering and individuals with normal fluency on various working memory tasks. A total of 30 individuals with stuttering and 30 individuals with normal fluency in the age range of 18 – 40 years participated in the study. The Working Memory domain will be assessed using The Manipal Manual for Cognitive Linguistic Abilities (MMCLA which consists of auditory word retrieval, auditory letter and number recall, auditory word list recall, auditory delayed sentence recall, visual practice recall, visual letter and number recall, visual word list recall and visual delayed sentence recall. Results revealed that the individuals with normal fluency had superior performance compared to the individuals with stuttering. Hence, it’s helpful to understand the involvement of working memory in stuttering and incorporate working memory training along with the conventional fluency therapy.

The Longitudinal Contribution of Early Morphological Awareness Skills to Reading Fluency and Comprehension in Greek

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George Manolitsis

2017-10-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this longitudinal study was to examine the role of three morphological awareness (MA skills (inflection, derivation, and compounding in word reading fluency and reading comprehension in a relatively transparent orthography (Greek. Two hundred and fifteen (104 girls; Mage = 67.40 months, at kindergarten Greek children were followed from kindergarten (K to grade 2 (G2. In K and grade 1 (G1, they were tested on measures of MA (two inflectional, two derivational, and three compounding, letter knowledge, phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN, and general cognitive ability (vocabulary and non-verbal IQ. At the end of G1 and G2, they were also tested on word reading fluency and reading comprehension. The results of hierarchical regression analyses showed that the inflectional and derivational aspects of MA in K as well as all aspects of MA in G1 accounted for 2–5% of unique variance in reading comprehension. None of the MA skills predicted word reading fluency, after controlling for the effects of vocabulary and RAN. These findings suggest that the MA skills, even when assessed as early as in kindergarten, play a significant role in reading comprehension development.

Musical and verbal semantic memory: two distinct neural networks?

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Groussard, M; Viader, F; Hubert, V; Landeau, B; Abbas, A; Desgranges, B; Eustache, F; Platel, H

2010-02-01

Semantic memory has been investigated in numerous neuroimaging and clinical studies, most of which have used verbal or visual, but only very seldom, musical material. Clinical studies have suggested that there is a relative neural independence between verbal and musical semantic memory. In the present study, "musical semantic memory" is defined as memory for "well-known" melodies without any knowledge of the spatial or temporal circumstances of learning, while "verbal semantic memory" corresponds to general knowledge about concepts, again without any knowledge of the spatial or temporal circumstances of learning. Our aim was to compare the neural substrates of musical and verbal semantic memory by administering the same type of task in each modality. We used high-resolution PET H(2)O(15) to observe 11 young subjects performing two main tasks: (1) a musical semantic memory task, where the subjects heard the first part of familiar melodies and had to decide whether the second part they heard matched the first, and (2) a verbal semantic memory task with the same design, but where the material consisted of well-known expressions or proverbs. The musical semantic memory condition activated the superior temporal area and inferior and middle frontal areas in the left hemisphere and the inferior frontal area in the right hemisphere. The verbal semantic memory condition activated the middle temporal region in the left hemisphere and the cerebellum in the right hemisphere. We found that the verbal and musical semantic processes activated a common network extending throughout the left temporal neocortex. In addition, there was a material-dependent topographical preference within this network, with predominantly anterior activation during musical tasks and predominantly posterior activation during semantic verbal tasks. Copyright (c) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Measuring autobiographical fluency in the self-memory system.

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Rathbone, Clare J; Moulin, Chris J A

2014-01-01

Autobiographical memory is widely considered to be fundamentally related to concepts of self and identity. However, few studies have sought to test models of self and memory directly using experimental designs. Using a novel autobiographical fluency paradigm, the present study investigated memory accessibility for different levels of self-related knowledge. Forty participants generated 20 "I am" statements about themselves, from which the 1st, 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th were used as cues in a two-minute autobiographical fluency task. The most salient aspects of the self, measured by both serial position and ratings of personal significance, were associated with more accessible sets of autobiographical memories. This finding supports theories that view the self as a powerful organizational structure in memory. Results are discussed with reference to models of self and memory.

It felt fluent, and I liked it: subjective feeling of fluency rather than objective fluency determines liking.

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Forster, Michael; Leder, Helmut; Ansorge, Ulrich

2013-04-01

According to the processing-fluency explanation of aesthetics, more fluently processed stimuli are preferred (R. Reber, N. Schwarz, & P. Winkielman, 2004, Processing fluency and aesthetic pleasure: Is beauty in the perceiver's processing experience? Personality and Social Psychology Review, Vol. 8, pp. 364-382.). In this view, the subjective feeling of ease of processing is considered important, but this has not been directly tested in perceptual processing. In two experiments, we therefore objectively manipulated fluency (ease of processing) with subliminal perceptual priming (Study 1) and variations in presentation durations (Study 2). We assessed the impact of objective fluency on feelings of fluency and liking, as well as their interdependence. In line with the processing-fluency account, we found that objectively more fluent images were indeed judged as more fluent and were also liked more. Moreover, differences in liking were even stronger when data were analyzed according to felt fluency. These findings demonstrate that perceptual fluency is not only explicitly felt, it can also be reported and is an important determinant of liking. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved.

Verbal communication among Alzheimer's disease patients, their caregivers, and primary care physicians during primary care office visits.

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Schmidt, Karen L; Lingler, Jennifer H; Schulz, Richard

2009-11-01

Primary care visits of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) often involve communication among patients, family caregivers, and primary care physicians (PCPs). The objective of this study was to understand the nature of each individual's verbal participation in these triadic interactions. To define the verbal communication dynamics of AD care triads, we compared verbal participation (percent of total visit speech) by each participant in patient/caregiver/PCP triads. Twenty-three triads were audio taped during a routine primary care visit. Rates of verbal participation were described and effects of patient cognitive status (MMSE score, verbal fluency) on verbal participation were assessed. PCP verbal participation was highest at 53% of total visit speech, followed by caregivers (31%) and patients (16%). Patient cognitive measures were related to patient and caregiver verbal participation, but not to PCP participation. Caregiver satisfaction with interpersonal treatment by PCP was positively related to caregiver's own verbal participation. Caregivers of AD patients and PCPs maintain active, coordinated verbal participation in primary care visits while patients participate less. Encouraging verbal participation by AD patients and their caregivers may increase the AD patient's active role and caregiver satisfaction with primary care visits.

Heart rate variability during acute psychosocial stress: A randomized cross-over trial of verbal and non-verbal laboratory stressors.

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Brugnera, Agostino; Zarbo, Cristina; Tarvainen, Mika P; Marchettini, Paolo; Adorni, Roberta; Compare, Angelo

2018-05-01

Acute psychosocial stress is typically investigated in laboratory settings using protocols with distinctive characteristics. For example, some tasks involve the action of speaking, which seems to alter Heart Rate Variability (HRV) through acute changes in respiration patterns. However, it is still unknown which task induces the strongest subjective and autonomic stress response. The present cross-over randomized trial sought to investigate the differences in perceived stress and in linear and non-linear analyses of HRV between three different verbal (Speech and Stroop) and non-verbal (Montreal Imaging Stress Task; MIST) stress tasks, in a sample of 60 healthy adults (51.7% females; mean age = 25.6 ± 3.83 years). Analyses were run controlling for respiration rates. Participants reported similar levels of perceived stress across the three tasks. However, MIST induced a stronger cardiovascular response than Speech and Stroop tasks, even after controlling for respiration rates. Finally, women reported higher levels of perceived stress and lower HRV both at rest and in response to acute psychosocial stressors, compared to men. Taken together, our results suggest the presence of gender-related differences during psychophysiological experiments on stress. They also suggest that verbal activity masked the vagal withdrawal through altered respiration patterns imposed by speaking. Therefore, our findings support the use of highly-standardized math task, such as MIST, as a valid and reliable alternative to verbal protocols during laboratory studies on stress. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Verbal Knowledge, Working Memory, and Processing Speed as Predictors of Verbal Learning in Older Adults

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Rast, Philippe

2011-01-01

The present study aimed at modeling individual differences in a verbal learning task by means of a latent structured growth curve approach based on an exponential function that yielded 3 parameters: initial recall, learning rate, and asymptotic performance. Three cognitive variables--speed of information processing, verbal knowledge, working…

Order information in verbal working memory shifts the subjective midpoint in both the line bisection and the landmark tasks.

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Antoine, Sophie; Ranzini, Mariagrazia; Gebuis, Titia; van Dijck, Jean-Philippe; Gevers, Wim

2017-10-01

A largely substantiated view in the domain of working memory is that the maintenance of serial order is achieved by generating associations of each item with an independent representation of its position, so-called position markers. Recent studies reported that the ordinal position of an item in verbal working memory interacts with spatial processing. This suggests that position markers might be spatial in nature. However, these interactions were so far observed in tasks implying a clear binary categorization of space (i.e., with left and right responses or targets). Such binary categorizations leave room for alternative interpretations, such as congruency between non-spatial categorical codes for ordinal position (e.g., begin and end) and spatial categorical codes for response (e.g., left and right). Here we discard this interpretation by providing evidence that this interaction can also be observed in a task that draws upon a continuous processing of space, the line bisection task. Specifically, bisections are modulated by ordinal position in verbal working memory, with lines bisected more towards the right after retrieving items from the end compared to the beginning of the memorized sequence. This supports the idea that position markers are intrinsically spatial in nature.

Lexical access changes in patients with multiple sclerosis: a two-year follow-up study.

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Sepulcre, Jorge; Peraita, Herminia; Goni, Joaquin; Arrondo, Gonzalo; Martincorena, Inigo; Duque, Beatriz; Velez de Mendizabal, Nieves; Masdeu, Joseph C; Villoslada, Pablo

2011-02-01

The aim of the study was to analyze lexical access strategies in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) and their changes over time. We studied lexical access strategies during semantic and phonemic verbal fluency tests and also confrontation naming in a 2-year prospective cohort of 45 MS patients and 20 healthy controls. At baseline, switching lexical access strategy (both in semantic and in phonemic verbal fluency tests) and confrontation naming were significantly impaired in MS patients compared with controls. After 2 years follow-up, switching score decreased, and cluster size increased over time in semantic verbal fluency tasks, suggesting a failure in the retrieval of lexical information rather than an impairment of the lexical pool. In conclusion, these findings underline the significant presence of lexical access problems in patients with MS and could point out their key role in the alterations of high-level communications abilities in MS.

Verbal and facial-emotional Stroop tasks reveal specific attentional interferences in sad mood.

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Isaac, Linda; Vrijsen, Janna N; Eling, Paul; van Oostrom, Iris; Speckens, Anne; Becker, Eni S

2012-01-01

Mood congruence refers to the tendency of individuals to attend to information more readily when it has the same emotional content as their current mood state. The aim of the present study was to ascertain whether attentional interference occurred for participants in sad mood states for emotionally relevant stimuli (mood-congruence), and to determine whether this interference occurred for both valenced words and valenced faces. A mood induction procedure was administered to 116 undergraduate females divided into two equal groups for the sad and happy mood condition. This study employed three versions of the Stroop task: color, verbal-emotional, and a facial-emotional Stroop. The two mood groups did not differ on the color Stroop. Significant group differences were found on the verbal-emotional Stroop for sad words with longer latencies for sad-induced participants. Main findings for the facial-emotional Stroop were that sad mood is associated with attentional interference for angry-threatening faces as well as longer latencies for neutral faces. Group differences were not found for positive stimuli. These findings confirm that sad mood is associated with attentional interference for mood-congruent stimuli in the verbal domain (sad words), but this mood-congruent effect does not necessarily apply to the visual domain (sad faces). Attentional interference for neutral faces suggests sad mood participants did not necessarily see valence-free faces. Attentional interference for threatening stimuli is often associated with anxiety; however, the current results show that threat is not an attentional interference observed exclusively in states of anxiety but also in sad mood.

Serial recall of rhythms and verbal sequences: Impacts of concurrent tasks and irrelevant sound.

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Hall, Debbora; Gathercole, Susan E

2011-08-01

Rhythmic grouping enhances verbal serial recall, yet very little is known about memory for rhythmic patterns. The aim of this study was to compare the cognitive processes supporting memory for rhythmic and verbal sequences using a range of concurrent tasks and irrelevant sounds. In Experiment 1, both concurrent articulation and paced finger tapping during presentation and during a retention interval impaired rhythm recall, while letter recall was only impaired by concurrent articulation. In Experiments 2 and 3, irrelevant sound consisted of irrelevant speech or tones, changing-state or steady-state sound, and syncopated or paced sound during presentation and during a retention interval. Irrelevant speech was more damaging to rhythm and letter recall than was irrelevant tone sound, but there was no effect of changing state on rhythm recall, while letter recall accuracy was disrupted by changing-state sound. Pacing of sound did not consistently affect either rhythm or letter recall. There are similarities in the way speech and rhythms are processed that appear to extend beyond reliance on temporal coding mechanisms involved in serial-order recall.

The Role of Task Complexity, Modality, and Aptitude in Narrative Task Performance

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Kormos, Judit; Trebits, Anna

2012-01-01

The study reported in this paper investigated the relationship between components of aptitude and the fluency, lexical variety, syntactic complexity, and accuracy of performance in two types of written and spoken narrative tasks. We also addressed the question of how narrative performance varies in tasks of different cognitive complexity in the…

Cognitive Predictors of Verbal Memory in a Mixed Clinical Pediatric Sample

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Shelley C. Heaton

2013-08-01

Full Text Available Verbal memory problems, along with other cognitive difficulties, are common in children diagnosed with neurological and/or psychological disorders. Historically, these “memory problems” have been poorly characterized and often present with a heterogeneous pattern of performance across memory processes, even within a specific diagnostic group. The current study examined archival neuropsychological data from a large mixed clinical pediatric sample in order to understand whether functioning in other cognitive areas (i.e., verbal knowledge, attention, working memory, executive functioning may explain some of the performance variability seen across verbal memory tasks of the Children’s Memory Scale (CMS. Multivariate analyses revealed that among the cognitive functions examined, only verbal knowledge explained a significant amount of variance in overall verbal memory performance. Further univariate analyses examining the component processes of verbal memory indicated that verbal knowledge is specifically related to encoding, but not the retention or retrieval stages. Future research is needed to replicate these findings in other clinical samples, to examine whether verbal knowledge predicts performance on other verbal memory tasks and to explore whether these findings also hold true for visual memory tasks. Successful replication of the current study findings would indicate that interventions targeting verbal encoding deficits should include efforts to improve verbal knowledge.

Gait analysis with cognitive-motor dual tasks to distinguish fallers from nonfallers among rehabilitating stroke patients.

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Baetens, Tina; De Kegel, Alexandra; Palmans, Tanneke; Oostra, Kristine; Vanderstraeten, Guy; Cambier, Dirk

2013-04-01

To evaluate fall risk in stroke patients based on single- and dual-task gait analyses, and to investigate the difference between 2 cognitive tasks in the dual-task paradigm. Prospective cohort study. Rehabilitation hospitals. Subacute stroke patients (N=32), able to walk without physical/manual help with or without walking aids, while performing a verbal task. Not applicable. Functional gait measures were Functional Ambulation Categories (FAC) and use of a walking aid. Gait measures were evaluated by an electronic walkway system under single- and dual-task (DT) conditions. For the single-task, subjects were instructed to walk at their usual speed. One of the DTs was a verbal fluency dual task, whereby subjects had to walk while simultaneously enumerating as many different animals as possible. For the other DT (counting dual task), participants had to walk while performing serial subtractions. After inclusion, participants kept a 6-month falls diary. Eighteen (56.3%) of the 32 included patients fell. Ten (31.3%) were single fallers (SFs), and 8 (25%) were multiple fallers (MFs). Fallers (Fs) more frequently used a walking aid and more frequently needed an observatory person for walking safely (FAC score of 3) than nonfallers (NFs). Two gait decrement parameters in counting dual task could distinguish potential Fs from NFs: decrement in stride length percentage (P=.043) and nonparetic step length percentage (P=.047). Regarding the division in 3 groups (NFs, SFs, and MFs), only MFs had a significantly higher percentage of decrement for paretic step length (P=.023) than SFs. Examining the decrement of spatial gait characteristics (stride length and paretic and nonparetic step length) during a DT addressing working memory can identify fall-prone subacute stroke patients. Copyright © 2013 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Category fluency test: effects of age, gender and education on total scores, clustering and switching in Brazilian Portuguese-speaking subjects

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Brucki S.M.D.

2004-01-01

Full Text Available Verbal fluency tests are used as a measure of executive functions and language, and can also be used to evaluate semantic memory. We analyzed the influence of education, gender and age on scores in a verbal fluency test using the animal category, and on number of categories, clustering and switching. We examined 257 healthy participants (152 females and 105 males with a mean age of 49.42 years (SD = 15.75 and having a mean educational level of 5.58 (SD = 4.25 years. We asked them to name as many animals as they could. Analysis of variance was performed to determine the effect of demographic variables. No significant effect of gender was observed for any of the measures. However, age seemed to influence the number of category changes, as expected for a sensitive frontal measure, after being controlled for the effect of education. Educational level had a statistically significant effect on all measures, except for clustering. Subject performance (mean number of animals named according to schooling was: illiterates, 12.1; 1 to 4 years, 12.3; 5 to 8 years, 14.0; 9 to 11 years, 16.7, and more than 11 years, 17.8. We observed a decrease in performance in these five educational groups over time (more items recalled during the first 15 s, followed by a progressive reduction until the fourth interval. We conclude that education had the greatest effect on the category fluency test in this Brazilian sample. Therefore, we must take care in evaluating performance in lower educational subjects.

Visual search behaviours and verbal reports during film-based and in situ representative tasks in volleyball.

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Afonso, José; Garganta, Júlio; McRobert, Allistair; Williams, Mark; Mesquita, Isabel

2014-01-01

Several researchers have explored the processes underlying perceptual-cognitive expertise, mainly using film-based studies. However, few have compared the extent to which data from film-based settings differ from those obtained through in situ collection. This gap in the literature is a relevant concern, since scientific research is used to provide guidance for designing training programmes. In this paper, eye movement recording and verbal reports of thinking were combined to explore the processes underpinning skilled performance in a representative volleyball task involving both film-based and in situ data collection. Nine volleyball players performed as backcourt defenders while wearing an eye-tracking device and providing verbal reports of thinking after each sequence. A number of significant differences were observed between the data gathered under film-based and in situ conditions. Namely, in the in situ condition participants employed longer fixations (728.11 ± 129.27 ms) than in the film condition (659.57 ± 178.06 ms), and there were differences in the nature of the fixation locations. With respect to verbal reports, participants exhibited superior level of sophistication in the in situ condition (2.57 ± 0.50 vs. 2.30 ± 0.84 in the film condition), while denoting a greater concern with the opponents under this condition (1.00 ± 0.73) than in the film condition (0.59 ± 0.60). These differences emerged despite task design and constraints being highly similar. No differences were apparent in the number of gaze fixations and fixation locations across conditions or in the number of verbalised condition concepts. Although exploratory, our data suggest that the mechanisms underpinning skilled decision-making in sports differ between film-based and in situ conditions.

Differential learning and memory performance in OEF/OIF veterans for verbal and visual material.

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Sozda, Christopher N; Muir, James J; Springer, Utaka S; Partovi, Diana; Cole, Michael A

2014-05-01

Memory complaints are particularly salient among veterans who experience combat-related mild traumatic brain injuries and/or trauma exposure, and represent a primary barrier to successful societal reintegration and everyday functioning. Anecdotally within clinical practice, verbal learning and memory performance frequently appears differentially reduced versus visual learning and memory scores. We sought to empirically investigate the robustness of a verbal versus visual learning and memory discrepancy and to explore potential mechanisms for a verbal/visual performance split. Participants consisted of 103 veterans with reported history of mild traumatic brain injuries returning home from U.S. military Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom referred for outpatient neuropsychological evaluation. Findings indicate that visual learning and memory abilities were largely intact while verbal learning and memory performance was significantly reduced in comparison, residing at approximately 1.1 SD below the mean for verbal learning and approximately 1.4 SD below the mean for verbal memory. This difference was not observed in verbal versus visual fluency performance, nor was it associated with estimated premorbid verbal abilities or traumatic brain injury history. In our sample, symptoms of depression, but not posttraumatic stress disorder, were significantly associated with reduced composite verbal learning and memory performance. Verbal learning and memory performance may benefit from targeted treatment of depressive symptomatology. Also, because visual learning and memory functions may remain intact, these might be emphasized when applying neurocognitive rehabilitation interventions to compensate for observed verbal learning and memory difficulties.

Short-term verbal memory and psychophysiological response to emotion-related words in children who stutter

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Stokić Miodrag

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Emotions play a significant role in fluency disorders. In this research we wanted to examine immediate and delayed verbal recall for auditory presented words that carry information about different emotional state (emotion-related words and emotionally neutral words in children who stutter (N=35 and their peers (N=35. Using only word semantics, we wanted to eliminate emotional verbal expression of words as a factor that can influence memory abilities. In addition, we also wanted to examine skin conductance measure as an indicator of autonomic nervous system arousal during short-term memory task for emotion-related and emotionally neutral words. Parental questionnaire (Stuttering Intensity in Children Who Stutter in Positive and Negative Emotion-Related Everyday Situations was given to parents of children who stutter in order to collect data regarding stuttering severity in emotionally arousing situations in everyday life. Differences between the experimental and the control group in global memory capacity are highest in immediate recall (p=0,01 with the tendency for lowering statistical significance with prolongation of retention interval. According to the questionnaire results, children who stutter show a higher degree of stuttering in situations with positive emotional valence (p< 0.00. Skin conductance measurements showed higher autonomic nervous system arousal during perception and free recall of positive emotion-related words in children who stutter when compared to negative and emotionally neutral words. The results indicate higher emotional arousal to positive emotions in children who stutter (p=0.02, leading to either less fluent speech or suppression of verbal short-term memory capacity.

The Effects of a Single Night of Sleep Deprivation on Fluency and Prefrontal Cortex Function during Divergent Thinking

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Oshin eVartanian

2014-04-01

Full Text Available The dorsal and ventral aspects of the prefrontal cortex (PFC are the two regions most consistently recruited in divergent thinking tasks. Given that frontal tasks have been shown to be vulnerable to sleep loss, we explored the impact of a single night of sleep deprivation on fluency (i.e., number of generated responses and PFC function during divergent thinking. Participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI scanning twice while engaged in the Alternate Uses Task (AUT—once following a single night of sleep deprivation and once following a night of normal sleep. They also wore wrist activity monitors, which enabled us to quantify daily sleep and model cognitive effectiveness. The intervention was effective, producing greater levels of fatigue and sleepiness. Modelled cognitive effectiveness and fluency were impaired following sleep deprivation, and sleep deprivation was associated with greater activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus during AUT. The results suggest that an intervention known to temporarily compromise frontal function can impair fluency, and that this effect is instantiated in the form of an increased haemodynamic response in the left inferior frontal gyrus.

Executive functions in becoming writing readers and reading writers: note taking and report writing in third and fifth graders.

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Altemeier, Leah; Jones, Janine; Abbott, Robert D; Berninger, Virginia W

2006-01-01

Results are reported for a study of 2 separate processes of report writing-taking notes while reading source material and composing a report from those notes-and related individual differences in executive functions involved in integrating reading and writing during these writing activities. Third graders (n = 122) and 5th graders (n = 106; overall, 127 girls and 114 boys) completed two reading-writing tasks-read paragraph (mock science text)-write notes and use notes to generate written report, a reading comprehension test, a written expression test, four tests of executive functions (inhibition, verbal fluency, planning, switching attention), and a working memory test. For the read-take notes task, the same combination of variables was best (explained the most variance and each variable added unique variance) for 3rd graders and 5th graders: Wechsler Individual Achievement Test-Second Edition (WIAT-II) Reading Comprehension, Process Assessment of the Learner Test for Reading and Writing (PAL) Copy Task B, WIAT-II Written Expression, and Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS) Inhibition. For the use notes to write report task, the best combinations of variables depended on grade level: For 3rd graders, WIAT-II Reading Comprehension, WIAT-II Written Expression, D-KEFS Verbal Fluency, and Tower of Hanoi; for 5th graders, WIAT-II Reading Comprehension, D-KEFS Verbal Fluency, WIAT-II Written Expression, and PAL Alphabet Task. These results add to prior research findings that executive functions contribute to the writing development of elementary-grade students and additionally support the hypothesis that executive functions play a role in developing reading-writing connections.

fMRI activation in the middle frontal gyrus as an indicator of hemispheric dominance for language in brain tumor patients: a comparison with Broca's area.

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Dong, Jian W; Brennan, Nicole M Petrovich; Izzo, Giana; Peck, Kyung K; Holodny, Andrei I

2016-05-01

Functional MRI (fMRI) can assess language lateralization in brain tumor patients; however, this can be limited if the primary language area-Broca's area (BA)-is affected by the tumor. We hypothesized that the middle frontal gyrus (MFG) can be used as a clinical indicator of hemispheric dominance for language during presurgical workup. Fifty-two right-handed subjects with solitary left-hemispheric primary brain tumors were retrospectively studied. Subjects performed a verbal fluency task during fMRI. The MFG was compared to BA for fMRI voxel activation, language laterality index (LI), and the effect of tumor grade on the LI. Language fMRI (verbal fluency) activated more voxels in MFG than in BA (MFG = 315, BA = 216, p hemispheric MFG and BA were positively correlated (r = 0.69, p hemispheric dominance for language using a measure of verbal fluency and may be an adjunct measure in the clinical determination of language laterality for presurgical planning.

Event-related potentials indicate that fluency can be interpreted as familiarity.

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Bruett, Heather; Leynes, P Andrew

2015-11-01

Recent evidence suggests that fluency may be capable of supporting recognition independently of familiarity. This hypothesis was further tested in the present study. 29 participants encoded name-brand and off-brand products in an incidental task. Participants then judged whether the product was old or new during two tests with products from one category (i.e., only name-brand or only off-brand products) and a mixed test (where both name-brand and off-brand products were shown). The ERP data elicited by off-brand products varied as a function of test format. During the mixed test, off-brand products were correlated with a FN400 effect, whereas a fluency ERP (old ERPs were more negative than new at parietal electrodes 225-400ms) was observed during the other test. Importantly, no FN400 was detected during this test. The ERP results suggest that viewing the off-brand products during the mixed test produced a familiarity experience; however, fluency supported recognition when viewing off-brand products on the other test. The results are strong evidence that top-down processing of visual features during recognition interprets the information relative to the context. This process results in either fluency or, in other contexts, it is interpreted as familiarity as the Discrepancy-Attribution Hypothesis (Whittlesea and Williams, 2001a, 2001b) contends. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The visual attention span deficit in dyslexia is visual and not verbal.

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Lobier, Muriel; Zoubrinetzky, Rachel; Valdois, Sylviane

2012-06-01

The visual attention (VA) span deficit hypothesis of dyslexia posits that letter string deficits are a consequence of impaired visual processing. Alternatively, some have interpreted this deficit as resulting from a visual-to-phonology code mapping impairment. This study aims to disambiguate between the two interpretations by investigating performance in a non-verbal character string visual categorization task with verbal and non-verbal stimuli. Results show that VA span ability predicts performance for the non-verbal visual processing task in normal reading children. Furthermore, VA span impaired dyslexic children are also impaired for the categorization task independently of stimuli type. This supports the hypothesis that the underlying impairment responsible for the VA span deficit is visual, not verbal. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Srl. All rights reserved.

The present status of the study on the validity of concurrent verbalization

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Watanabe, Megumi; Takahashi, Hideaki.

1993-09-01

We reviewed study on the validity of the method of verbal reports. The method of verbal reports gives us detailed information about human cognitive process as compared with observing a sequence of actions, while it is subjected to criticism for the validity as data. Ericsson and Simon proposed a model of verbalization and investigated conditions to keep verbal reports valid. Although a lot of studies quote their model as a base of adopting the method of verbal reports, verification the validity of verbal reports is incomplete because effects of verbalization is not clear. We pointed out that it is necessary to take into consideration kinds of task strategies, effects of trial repetition, effects of task difficulty to examine precisely effects of verbalization. (author)

Guanfacine enhances inhibitory control and attentional shifting in early abstinent cocaine-dependent individuals.

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Fox, Helen; Sofuoglu, Mehmet; Sinha, Rajita

2015-03-01

Attenuation of adrenergic drive and cognitive enhancement, via stimulation of alpha2 pre- and post-synaptic receptors, may selectively enhance executive performance in early abstinent cocaine-dependent individuals. As these cognitive processes underpin important treatment-related behaviors, the alpha2 agonist, guanfacine HCl, may represent an effective pharmaco-therapeutic intervention. Twenty-five early abstinent cocaine-dependent individuals were administered a battery of neurocognitive tasks on entry into treatment (baseline) and again following 3 weeks of either placebo or guanfacine treatment (up to 3 mg). Tasks included: Stop Signal, Stroop, 3-Dimentional Intra-dimensional/Extra-dimensional (IDED) task, Spatial Working Memory (SWM), Paired Associates Learning (PAL), Verbal Fluency and the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT). Compared with placebo, the guanfacine group demonstrated attenuated anxiety and negative affect as well as improved performance on selective executive tests. This included fewer directional errors on the stop signal task, fewer errors on the extra-dimensional shift component of the IDED task and better attentional switching during verbal fluency. Guanfacine did not improve strategic working memory or peripheral memory. Guanfacine improves selective cognitive processes which may underlie salient treatment-related regulatory behaviors. Alpha2 agonists may therefore represent important agents for cocaine dependence. © The Author(s) 2015.

Verbal Communication among Alzheimer’s Disease Patients, their Caregivers, and Primary Care Physicians during Primary Care Office Visits

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Schmidt, Karen L.; Lingler, Jennifer H.; Schulz, Richard

2009-01-01

Objective Primary care visits of patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) often involve communication among patients, family caregivers, and primary care physicians (PCPs). The objective of this study was to understand the nature of each individual’s verbal participation in these triadic interactions. Methods To define the verbal communication dynamics of AD care triads, we compared verbal participation (percent of total visit speech) by each participant in patient/caregiver/PCP triads. Twenty three triads were audio taped during a routine primary care visit. Rates of verbal participation were described and effects of patient cognitive status (MMSE score, verbal fluency) on verbal participation were assessed. Results PCP verbal participation was highest at 53% of total visit speech, followed by caregivers (31%) and patients (16%). Patient cognitive measures were related to patient and caregiver verbal participation, but not to PCP participation. Caregiver satisfaction with interpersonal treatment by PCP was positively related to caregiver’s own verbal participation. Conclusion Caregivers of AD patients and PCPs maintain active, coordinated verbal participation in primary care visits while patients participate less. Practice Implications Encouraging verbal participation by AD patients and their caregivers may increase the AD patient’s active role and caregiver satisfaction with primary care visits. PMID:19395224

Cognitive correlates of spatial navigation: Associations between executive functioning and the virtual Morris Water Task.

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Korthauer, L E; Nowak, N T; Frahmand, M; Driscoll, I

2017-01-15

Although effective spatial navigation requires memory for objects and locations, navigating a novel environment may also require considerable executive resources. The present study investigated associations between performance on the virtual Morris Water Task (vMWT), an analog version of a nonhuman spatial navigation task, and neuropsychological tests of executive functioning and spatial performance in 75 healthy young adults. More effective vMWT performance (e.g., lower latency and distance to reach hidden platform, greater distance in goal quadrant on a probe trial, fewer path intersections) was associated with better verbal fluency, set switching, response inhibition, and ability to mentally rotate objects. Findings also support a male advantage in spatial navigation, with sex moderating several associations between vMWT performance and executive abilities. Overall, we report a robust relationship between executive functioning and navigational skill, with some evidence that men and women may differentially recruit cognitive abilities when navigating a novel environment. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Verbal learning in the context of background music: no influence of vocals and instrumentals on verbal learning.

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Jancke L; Brugger E; Brummer M; Scherrer S; Alahmadi N

2014-01-01

BACKGROUND: Whether listening to background music enhances verbal learning performance is still a matter of dispute. In this study we investigated the influence of vocal and instrumental background music on verbal learning. METHODS: 226 subjects were randomly assigned to one of five groups (one control group and 4 experimental groups). All participants were exposed to a verbal learning task. One group served as control group while the 4 further groups served as experimental groups. The con...

Orthographic learning in children with isolated and combined reading and spelling deficits.

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Mehlhase, Heike; Bakos, Sarolta; Landerl, Karin; Schulte-Körne, Gerd; Moll, Kristina

2018-05-07

Dissociations between reading and spelling problems are likely to be associated with different underlying cognitive deficits, and with different deficits in orthographic learning. In order to understand these differences, the current study examined orthographic learning using a printed-word learning paradigm. Children (4th grade) with isolated reading, isolated spelling and combined reading and spelling problems were compared to children with age appropriate reading and spelling skills on their performance during learning novel words and symbols (non-verbal control condition), and during immediate and delayed reading and spelling recall tasks. No group differences occurred in the non-verbal control condition. In the verbal condition, initial learning was intact in all groups, but differences occurred during recall tasks. Children with reading fluency deficits showed slower reading times, while children with spelling deficits were less accurate, both in reading and spelling recall. Children with isolated spelling problems showed no difficulties in immediate spelling recall, but had problems in remembering the spellings 2 hours later. The results suggest that different orthographic learning deficits underlie reading fluency and spelling problems: Children with isolated reading fluency deficits have no difficulties in building-up orthographic representations, but access to these representations is slowed down while children with isolated spelling deficits have problems in storing precise orthographic representations in long-term memory.

Mixture Growth Models of RAN and RAS Row by Row: Insight into the Reading System at Work over Time

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Amtmann, Dagmar; Abbott, Robert D.; Berninger, V. W.

2007-01-01

Children (n = 122) and adults (n = 200) with dyslexia completed rapid automatic naming (RAN) letters, rapid automatic switching (RAS) letters and numbers, executive function (inhibition, verbal fluency), and phonological working memory tasks. Typically developing 3rd (n = 117) and 5th (n = 103) graders completed the RAS task. Instead of analyzing…

Strengths and weaknesses in executive functioning in children with intellectual disability

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Danielsson, H.; Henry, L.; Messer, D. J.; Ronnberg, J.

2012-01-01

Children with intellectual disability (ID) were given a comprehensive range of executive functioning measures, which systematically varied in terms of verbal and non-verbal demands. Their performance was compared to the performance of groups matched on mental age (MA) and chronological age (CA), respectively. Twenty-two children were included in each group. Children with ID performed on par with the MA group on switching, verbal executive-loaded working memory and most fluency tasks, but belo...

The visual attention span deficit in Chinese children with reading fluency difficulty.

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Zhao, Jing; Liu, Menglian; Liu, Hanlong; Huang, Chen

2018-02-01

With reading development, some children fail to learn to read fluently. However, reading fluency difficulty (RFD) has not been fully investigated. The present study explored the underlying mechanism of RFD from the aspect of visual attention span. Fourteen Chinese children with RFD and fourteen age-matched normal readers participated. The visual 1-back task was adopted to examine visual attention span. Reaction time and accuracy were recorded, and relevant d-prime (d') scores were computed. Results showed that children with RFD exhibited lower accuracy and lower d' values than the controls did in the visual 1-back task, revealing a visual attention span deficit. Further analyses on d' values revealed that the attention distribution seemed to exhibit an inverted U-shaped pattern without lateralization for normal readers, but a W-shaped pattern with a rightward bias for children with RFD, which was discussed based on between-group variation in reading strategies. Results of the correlation analyses showed that visual attention span was associated with reading fluency at the sentence level for normal readers, but was related to reading fluency at the single-character level for children with RFD. The different patterns in correlations between groups revealed that visual attention span might be affected by the variation in reading strategies. The current findings extend previous data from alphabetic languages to Chinese, a logographic language with a particularly deep orthography, and have implications for reading-dysfluency remediation. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Belief attribution despite verbal interference.

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Forgeot d'Arc, Baudouin; Ramus, Franck

2011-05-01

False-belief (FB) tasks have been widely used to study the ability of individuals to represent the content of their conspecifics' mental states (theory of mind). However, the cognitive processes involved are still poorly understood, and it remains particularly debated whether language and inner speech are necessary for the attribution of beliefs to other agents. We present a completely nonverbal paradigm consisting of silent animated cartoons in five closely related conditions, systematically teasing apart different aspects of scene analysis and allowing the assessment of the attribution of beliefs, goals, and physical causation. In order to test the role of language in belief attribution, we used verbal shadowing as a dual task to inhibit inner speech. Data on 58 healthy adults indicate that verbal interference decreases overall performance, but has no specific effect on belief attribution. Participants remained able to attribute beliefs despite heavy concurrent demands on their verbal abilities. Our results are most consistent with the hypothesis that belief attribution is independent from inner speech.

Effects of a meditation program on verbal creative levels in a group of studens in late secondary education

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Franco Justo, Clemente

2009-12-01

Full Text Available This study analyzes the effects of a meditation program on level of verbal creativity (fluency, flexibility and originality in a group of students in Spain’s two-year educational program for university preparation (Bachillerato. Participants formed two groups: a experimental group that participated in a meditation program, and a control group that did not take part in this intervention. Creativitylevels for the two groups were assessed using the verbal battery of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, with significant improvement found in the experimental group as compared to the control group for the variables studied.

Impaired verbal memory in Parkinson disease: relationship to prefrontal dysfunction and somatosensory discrimination

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Weniger Dorothea

2009-12-01

Full Text Available Abstract Objective To study the neurocognitive profile and its relationship to prefrontal dysfunction in non-demented Parkinson's disease (PD with deficient haptic perception. Methods Twelve right-handed patients with PD and 12 healthy control subjects underwent thorough neuropsychological testing including Rey complex figure, Rey auditory verbal and figural learning test, figural and verbal fluency, and Stroop test. Test scores reflecting significant differences between patients and healthy subjects were correlated with the individual expression coefficients of one principal component, obtained in a principal component analysis of an oxygen-15-labeled water PET study exploring somatosensory discrimination that differentiated between the two groups and involved prefrontal cortices. Results We found significantly decreased total scores for the verbal learning trials and verbal delayed free recall in PD patients compared with normal volunteers. Further analysis of these parameters using Spearman's ranking correlation showed a significantly negative correlation of deficient verbal recall with expression coefficients of the principal component whose image showed a subcortical-cortical network, including right dorsolateral-prefrontal cortex, in PD patients. Conclusion PD patients with disrupted right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex function and associated diminished somatosensory discrimination are impaired also in verbal memory functions. A negative correlation between delayed verbal free recall and PET activation in a network including the prefrontal cortices suggests that verbal cues and accordingly declarative memory processes may be operative in PD during activities that demand sustained attention such as somatosensory discrimination. Verbal cues may be compensatory in nature and help to non-specifically enhance focused attention in the presence of a functionally disrupted prefrontal cortex.

Dissociation of neural correlates of verbal and non-verbal visual working memory with different delays

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Endestad Tor

2007-10-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC, posterior parietal cortex, and regions in the occipital cortex have been identified as neural sites for visual working memory (WM. The exact involvement of the DLPFC in verbal and non-verbal working memory processes, and how these processes depend on the time-span for retention, remains disputed. Methods We used functional MRI to explore the neural correlates of the delayed discrimination of Gabor stimuli differing in orientation. Twelve subjects were instructed to code the relative orientation either verbally or non-verbally with memory delays of short (2 s or long (8 s duration. Results Blood-oxygen level dependent (BOLD 3-Tesla fMRI revealed significantly more activity for the short verbal condition compared to the short non-verbal condition in bilateral superior temporal gyrus, insula and supramarginal gyrus. Activity in the long verbal condition was greater than in the long non-verbal condition in left language-associated areas (STG and bilateral posterior parietal areas, including precuneus. Interestingly, right DLPFC and bilateral superior frontal gyrus was more active in the non-verbal long delay condition than in the long verbal condition. Conclusion The results point to a dissociation between the cortical sites involved in verbal and non-verbal WM for long and short delays. Right DLPFC seems to be engaged in non-verbal WM tasks especially for long delays. Furthermore, the results indicate that even slightly different memory maintenance intervals engage largely differing networks and that this novel finding may explain differing results in previous verbal/non-verbal WM studies.

VERBALIZACIÓN EN DOS MUJERES OCTOGENARIAS - VERBALIZATION IN TWO OCTOGENARIAN WOMEN

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JHONNY LOAIZA GARCÍA

2010-06-01

Full Text Available This research was developed according to the criteria of the empiric analytic paradigm. It includes a descriptive analysis about the verbal fluency of two people who are more than 80 years old who consider language the basic way to express themselves. The necessary information was got by applying the WAIS verbal test which evaluates language in some specific areas.Besides applying the test, it was also used an interview which showed some important data about each patient’s personal history. The results were analyze according to a clinic optic, supported by the analysis proposed by Josette Benavides (1984 in character evaluation techniques. This research also follows the knowledge contributed by the memory clinic of Universidad Javeriana, directed by Patricia Montañes, Diana Matallana and Carlos Cano, authors of many studies related to the elderly people in Colombia

Stage effects of negative emotion on spatial and verbal working memory

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Chan Raymond CK

2010-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The effects of negative emotion on different processing periods in spatial and verbal working memory (WM and the possible brain mechanism of the interaction between negative emotion and WM were explored using a high-time resolution event-related potential (ERP technique and time-locked delayed matching-to-sample task (DMST. Results Early P3b and late P3b were reduced in the negative emotion condition for both the spatial and verbal tasks at encoding. At retention, the sustained negative slow wave (NSW showed a significant interaction between emotional state and task type. Spatial trials in the negative emotion condition elicited a more negative deflection than they did in the neutral emotion condition. However, no such effect was observed for the verbal tasks. At retrieval, early P3b and late P3b were markedly more attenuated in the negative emotion condition than in the neutral emotion condition for both the spatial and verbal tasks. Conclusions The results indicate that the differential effects of negative emotion on spatial and verbal WM mainly take place during information maintenance processing, which implies that there is a systematic association between specific affects (e.g., negative emotion and certain cognitive processes (e.g., spatial retention.

The relationship between different measures of oral reading fluency and reading comprehension in second-grade students who evidence different oral reading fluency difficulties.

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Wise, Justin C; Sevcik, Rose A; Morris, Robin D; Lovett, Maureen W; Wolf, Maryanne; Kuhn, Melanie; Meisinger, Beth; Schwanenflugel, Paula

2010-07-01

The purpose of this study was to examine whether different measures of oral reading fluency relate differentially to reading comprehension performance in two samples of second-grade students: (a) students who evidenced difficulties with nonsense-word oral reading fluency, real-word oral reading fluency, and oral reading fluency of connected text (ORFD), and (b) students who evidenced difficulties only with oral reading fluency of connected text (CTD). Participants (ORFD, n = 146 and CTD, n = 949) were second-grade students who were recruited for participation in different reading intervention studies. Data analyzed were from measures of nonsense-word oral reading fluency, real-word oral reading fluency, oral reading fluency of connected text, and reading comprehension that were collected at the pre-intervention time point. Correlational and path analyses indicated that real-word oral reading fluency was the strongest predictor of reading comprehension performance in both samples and across average and poor reading comprehension abilities. Results of this study indicate that real-word oral reading fluency was the strongest predictor of reading comprehension and suggest that real-word oral reading fluency may be an efficient method for identifying potential reading comprehension difficulties.

Exploring EFL fluency in Asia

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Muller, T; Brown, P; Herder, S

2014-01-01

In EFL contexts, an absence of chances to develop fluency in the language classroom can lead to marked limitations in English proficiency. This volume explores fluency development from a number of different perspectives, investigating measurements and classroom strategies for promoting its development.

When customers exhibit verbal aggression, employees pay cognitive costs.

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Rafaeli, Anat; Erez, Amir; Ravid, Shy; Derfler-Rozin, Rellie; Treister, Dorit Efrat; Scheyer, Ravit

2012-09-01

In 4 experimental studies, we show that customer verbal aggression impaired the cognitive performance of the targets of this aggression. In Study 1, customers' verbal aggression reduced recall of customers' requests. Study 2 extended these findings by showing that customer verbal aggression impaired recognition memory and working memory among employees of a cellular communication provider. In Study 3, the ability to take another's perspective attenuated the negative effects of customer verbal aggression on participants' cognitive performance. Study 4 linked customer verbal aggression to quality of task performance, showing a particularly negative influence of aggressive requests delivered by high-status customers. Together, these studies suggest that the effects of even minor aggression from customers can strongly affect the immediate cognitive performance of customer service employees and reduce their task performance. The implications for research on aggression and for the practice of customer service are discussed.

Discrepancies between bilinguals' performance on the Spanish and English versions of the WAIS Digit Span task: Cross-cultural implications.

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López, Enrique; Steiner, Alexander J; Hardy, David J; IsHak, Waguih W; Anderson, W Brantley

2016-01-01

This study explored within-subjects differences in the performance of 40 bilingual participants on the English and Spanish versions of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) Digit Span task. To test the linguistic hypothesis that individuals would perform worse in Spanish because of its syllabic demand, we compared the number of syllables correctly recalled by each participant for every correct trial. Our analysis of the correct number of syllables remembered per trial showed that participants performed significantly better (i.e., recalling more syllables) in Spanish than in English on the total score. Findings suggest the Spanish version of the Digit Span (total score) was significantly more difficult than the English version utilizing traditional scoring methods. Moreover, the Forward Trial, rather than the Backward Trial, was more likely to show group differences between both language versions. Additionally, the Spanish trials of the Digit Span were correlated with language comprehension and verbal episodic memory measures, whereas the English trials of the Digit Span were correlated with confrontational naming and verbal fluency tasks. The results suggest that more research is necessary to further investigate other cognitive factors, rather than just syllabic demand, that might contribute to performance and outcome differences on the WAIS Digit Span in Spanish-English bilinguals.

Principal component analysis study of visual and verbal metaphoric comprehension in children with autism and learning disabilities.

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Mashal, Nira; Kasirer, Anat

2012-01-01

This research extends previous studies regarding the metaphoric competence of autistic and learning disable children on different measures of visual and verbal non-literal language comprehension, as well as cognitive abilities that include semantic knowledge, executive functions, similarities, and reading fluency. Thirty seven children with autism (ASD), 20 children with learning disabilities (LD), and 21 typically developed (TD) children participated in the study. Principal components analysis was used to examine the interrelationship among the various tests in each group. Results showed different patterns in the data according to group. In particular, the results revealed that there is no dichotomy between visual and verbal metaphors in TD children but rather metaphor are classified according to their familiarity level. In the LD group visual metaphors were classified independently of the verbal metaphors. Verbal metaphoric understanding in the ASD group resembled the LD group. In addition, our results revealed the relative weakness of the ASD and LD children in suppressing irrelevant information. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Functional neuroanatomy of executive function after neonatal brain injury in adults who were born very preterm.

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Anastasia K Kalpakidou

Full Text Available Individuals who were born very preterm (VPT; <33 gestational weeks are at risk of experiencing deficits in tasks involving executive function in childhood and beyond. In addition, the type and severity of neonatal brain injury associated with very preterm birth may exert differential effects on executive functioning by altering its neuroanatomical substrates. Here we addressed this question by investigating with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI the haemodynamic response during executive-type processing using a phonological verbal fluency and a working memory task in VPT-born young adults who had experienced differing degrees of neonatal brain injury. 12 VPT individuals with a history of periventricular haemorrhage and ventricular dilatation (PVH+VD, 17 VPT individuals with a history of uncomplicated periventricular haemorrhage (UPVH, 13 VPT individuals with no history of neonatal brain injury and 17 controls received an MRI scan whilst completing a verbal fluency task with two cognitive loads ('easy' and 'hard' letters. Two groups of VPT individuals (PVH+VD; n = 10, UPVH; n = 8 performed an n-back task with three cognitive loads (1-, 2-, 3-back. Results demonstrated that VPT individuals displayed hyperactivation in frontal, temporal, and parietal cortices and in caudate nucleus, insula and thalamus compared to controls, as demands of the verbal fluency task increased, regardless of type of neonatal brain injury. On the other hand, during the n-back task and as working memory load increased, the PVH+VD group showed less engagement of the frontal cortex than the UPVH group. In conclusion, this study suggests that the functional neuroanatomy of different executive-type processes is altered following VPT birth and that neural activation associated with specific aspects of executive function (i.e., working memory may be particularly sensitive to the extent of neonatal brain injury.

Processing Fluency and Decision-Making: The Role of Language Structure

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Deckert Mikołaj

2015-10-01

Full Text Available This paper models conventionalisation of language structure as constitutive of processing fluency. I postulate that the difference in conventionalisation of linguistic forms used for communication significantly influences our reasoning about linguistically-expressed problems. Two studies are reported that tested this hypothesis with the use of variably conventionalised - fluent and disfluent - formulations of problem-solving tasks. Th e findings indicate that even in tasks requiring analytic reasoning, the degree to which the linguistic forms employed to communicate are conventionalised is correlated with the subjects’ performance success rate. On a more general level, this paper seeks to empirically address the nature of links between linguistic form and meaning construction.

Rapid naming, phonological memory and reading fluency in Brazilian bilingual students.

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Fleury, Fernanda Oppenheimer; Avila, Clara Regina Brandão de

2015-01-01

To characterize the performance of Brazilian students exposed to two languages in reading fluency, phonological memory, and rapid naming, according to grade level, and to investigate correlations between these variables. Sixty students took part in this study (50% female), enrolled in the third to the fifth grades of two elementary schools of the city of São Paulo. They constituted two groups - bilingual group: 30 Brazilian children whose mother tongue and language spoken at home was Brazilian Portuguese and who were daily exposed to English at school for a period not shorter than three years; monolingual group: 30 students, from a monolingual Brazilian elementary school, who were paired by gender, age, and grade level with the bilingual students. Foreign children, children with complaint or indication of speech and language disorder, or who had been retained were excluded. A rapid automatized naming, pseudoword repetition, and oral reading tests were administered. The bilingual children were assessed in both languages and their performances were compared among themselves and with the monolingual group, which was only assessed in Brazilian Portuguese. The bilingual group showed better performance in English, rapid naming, and pseudoword repetition tasks, whereas Brazilian Portuguese, in reading fluency. A higher number of correlations were found in Brazilian Portuguese. The results suggest that the acquisition of a second language may positively influence the abilities of rapid naming, reading rate, and accuracy. Brazilian bilingual students performed better in tasks of phonological memory in English and Brazilian Portuguese performed better in reading fluency. Different correlation patterns were found between the rapid naming, accuracy, and reading rate, in the bilingual group analysis, in both languages.

Contribution of visuospatial attention, short-term memory and executive functions to performance in number interval bisection.

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Ranzini, Mariagrazia; Carbè, Katia; Gevers, Wim

2017-05-01

Number interval bisection consists of estimating the mid-number within a pair (1-9=>5). Healthy adults and right-brain damage patients can show biased performance in this task, underestimating and overestimating the mid-number, respectively. The role of visuospatial attention during this task, and its interplay with other cognitive abilities (e.g., working memory) is still object of debate. In this study we explored the relation between visuospatial attention and individual differences in working memory and executive functions during number interval bisection. To manipulate the deployment of visuospatial attention, healthy participants tracked a dot moving to the left or moving to the right while bisecting numerical intervals. We also collected information concerning verbal and visuospatial short-term memory span, and concerning verbal and visuospatial fluency scores. Beside replicating what is typically observed in this task (e.g., underestimation bias), a correlation was observed between verbal short-term memory and bisection bias, and an interesting relation between performance in the number interval bisection, verbal short-term memory, and visuospatial attention. Specifically, performance of those participants with low verbal span was affected by the direction of the moving dot, underestimating at a larger extent when the dot moved leftward than rightward. Finally, it was also observed that participants' verbal fluency ability contributed in the generation of biases in the numerical task. The finding of the involvement of abilities belonging to the verbal domain contributes to unveil the multi-componential nature of number interval bisection. Considering the debate on the nature of number interval bisection and its use in the clinical assessment of deficits following brain damage, this finding may be interesting also from a clinical perspective. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

An online three-class Transcranial Doppler ultrasound brain computer interface.

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Goyal, Anuja; Samadani, Ali-Akbar; Guerguerian, Anne-Marie; Chau, Tom

2016-06-01

Brain computer interfaces (BCI) can provide communication opportunities for individuals with severe motor disabilities. Transcranial Doppler ultrasound (TCD) measures cerebral blood flow velocities and can be used to develop a BCI. A previously implemented TCD BCI system used verbal and spatial tasks as control signals; however, the spatial task involved a visual cue that awkwardly diverted the user's attention away from the communication interface. Therefore, vision-independent right-lateralized tasks were investigated. Using a bilateral TCD BCI, ten participants controlled online, an on-screen keyboard using a left-lateralized task (verbal fluency), a right-lateralized task (fist motor imagery or 3D-shape tracing), and unconstrained rest. 3D-shape tracing was generally more discernible from other tasks than was fist motor imagery. Verbal fluency, 3D-shape tracing and unconstrained rest were distinguished from each other using a linear discriminant classifier, achieving a mean agreement of κ=0.43±0.17. These rates are comparable to the best offline three-class TCD BCI accuracies reported thus far. The online communication system achieved a mean information transfer rate (ITR) of 1.08±0.69bits/min with values reaching up to 2.46bits/min, thereby exceeding the ITR of previous online TCD BCIs. These findings demonstrate the potential of a three-class online TCD BCI that does not require visual task cues. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd and Japan Neuroscience Society. All rights reserved.

Spatial and verbal working memory: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study

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Blaž Koritnik

2004-08-01

Full Text Available According to numerous studies, working memory is not a unitary system. Baddeley's model of working memory includes besides central executive also two separate systems for verbal and visuo-spatial information processing. A modality- and process-specific specialization presumably exists in working memory system of the frontal lobes. In our preliminary study, we have used functional magnetic resonance imaging to study the pattern of cortical activation during spatial and verbal n-back task in six healthy subjects. A bilateral fronto-parietal cortical network was activated in both tasks. There was larger activation of right parietal and bilateral occipital areas in spatial than in vebal task. Activation of left sensorimotor area was larger in verbal compared to spatial task. No task-specific differences were found in the prefrontal cortex. Our results support the assumption that modality-specific processes exist within the working-memory system.

Connected text reading and differences in text reading fluency in adult readers.

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Sebastian Wallot

Full Text Available The process of connected text reading has received very little attention in contemporary cognitive psychology. This lack of attention is in parts due to a research tradition that emphasizes the role of basic lexical constituents, which can be studied in isolated words or sentences. However, this lack of attention is in parts also due to the lack of statistical analysis techniques, which accommodate interdependent time series. In this study, we investigate text reading performance with traditional and nonlinear analysis techniques and show how outcomes from multiple analyses can used to create a more detailed picture of the process of text reading. Specifically, we investigate reading performance of groups of literate adult readers that differ in reading fluency during a self-paced text reading task. Our results indicate that classical metrics of reading (such as word frequency do not capture text reading very well, and that classical measures of reading fluency (such as average reading time distinguish relatively poorly between participant groups. Nonlinear analyses of distribution tails and reading time fluctuations provide more fine-grained information about the reading process and reading fluency.

Prosody as a Tool for Assessing Reading Fluency of Adult ESL Students

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Seftirina Evina Sinambela

2017-12-01

Full Text Available The prosodic features in reading aloud assignment has been associated with the students’ decoding skill. The goal of the present study is to determine the reliability of prosody for assessing reading fluency of adult ESL students in Indonesia context. The participants were all Indonesian natives, undergraduate students, adult females and males who have learned English in school (at the very least twice a week for more than 12 years. Text reading prosody was assessed by reading aloud task and the students’ speaking manner was taped and measured by using the Multidimensional Fluency Scale, as for text comprehension was assessed with a standardized test. It was discovered by the current study that prosody is a reliable sign to determine reading fluency and also reading comprehension. The student who did not read the text prosodically (with appropriate expression actually showed that he/she failed to comprehend the text. This study also revealed that a struggling reader was also having low comprehension capacity in listening spoken texts. The ESL students’ common problems to acquire prosodic reading skill are low exposure to the target language and do not have a good model to imitate prosodic reading.

Verbal-motor attention-focusing instructions influence kinematics and performance on a golf-putting task.

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Munzert, Jörn; Maurer, Heiko; Reiser, Mathias

2014-01-01

The authors examined how varying the content of verbal-motor instructions and requesting an internal versus external focus influenced the kinematics and outcome of a golf putting task. On Day 1, 30 novices performed 120 trials with the instruction to focus attention either on performing a pendulum-like movement (internal) or on the desired ball path (external). After 20 retention trials on Day 2, they performed 20 transfer trials with the opposite instruction. Group differences for retention and a group by block interaction showed that external instruction enhanced movement outcome. Kinematic data indicated that specific instruction content influenced outcomes by eliciting changes in movement execution. Switching from the external to the internal focus instruction resulted in a more pendulum-like movement.

Google and the mind: predicting fluency with PageRank.

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Griffiths, Thomas L; Steyvers, Mark; Firl, Alana

2007-12-01

Human memory and Internet search engines face a shared computational problem, needing to retrieve stored pieces of information in response to a query. We explored whether they employ similar solutions, testing whether we could predict human performance on a fluency task using PageRank, a component of the Google search engine. In this task, people were shown a letter of the alphabet and asked to name the first word beginning with that letter that came to mind. We show that PageRank, computed on a semantic network constructed from word-association data, outperformed word frequency and the number of words for which a word is named as an associate as a predictor of the words that people produced in this task. We identify two simple process models that could support this apparent correspondence between human memory and Internet search, and relate our results to previous rational models of memory.

Involvement of the cerebellar cortex and nuclei in verbal and visuospatial working memory: a 7 T fMRI study.

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Thürling, M; Hautzel, H; Küper, M; Stefanescu, M R; Maderwald, S; Ladd, M E; Timmann, D

2012-09-01

The first aim of the present study was to extend previous findings of similar cerebellar cortical areas being involved in verbal and spatial n-back working memory to the level of the cerebellar nuclei. The second aim was to investigate whether different areas of the cerebellar cortex and nuclei contribute to different working memory tasks (n-back vs. Sternberg tasks). Young and healthy subjects participated in two functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies using a 7 T MR scanner with its increased signal-to-noise ratio. One group of subjects (n=21) performed an abstract and a verbal version of an n-back task contrasting a 2-back and 0-back condition. Another group of subjects (n=23) performed an abstract and a verbal version of a Sternberg task contrasting a high load and a low load condition. A block design was used. For image processing of the dentate nuclei, a recently developed region of interest (ROI) driven normalization method of the dentate nuclei was applied (Diedrichsen et al., 2011). Whereas activated areas of the cerebellar cortex and dentate nuclei were not significantly different comparing the abstract and verbal versions of the n-back task, activation in the abstract and verbal Sternberg tasks was significantly different. In both n-back tasks activation was most prominent at the border of lobules VI and Crus I, within lobule VII, and within the more caudal parts of the dentate nucleus bilaterally. In Sternberg tasks the most prominent activations were found in lobule VI extending into Crus I on the right. In the verbal Sternberg task activation was significantly larger within right lobule VI compared to the abstract Sternberg task and compared to the verbal n-back task. Activations of rostral parts of the dentate were most prominent in the verbal Sternberg task, whereas activation of caudal parts predominated in the abstract Sternberg task. On the one hand, the lack of difference between abstract and verbal n-back tasks and the lack of

Using temporal orientation, category fluency, and word recall for detecting cognitive impairment: the 10-point cognitive screener (10-CS).

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Apolinario, Daniel; Lichtenthaler, Daniel Gomes; Magaldi, Regina Miksian; Soares, Aline Thomaz; Busse, Alexandre Leopold; Amaral, Jose Renato das Gracas; Jacob-Filho, Wilson; Brucki, Sonia Maria Dozzi

2016-01-01

A screening strategy composed of three-item temporal orientation and three-word recall has been increasingly used for detecting cognitive impairment. However, the intervening task administered between presentation and recall has varied. We evaluated six brief tasks that could be useful as intervening distractors and possibly provide incremental accuracy: serial subtraction, clock drawing, category fluency, letter fluency, timed visual detection, and digits backwards. Older adults (n = 230) consecutively referred for suspected cognitive impairment underwent a comprehensive assessment for gold-standard diagnosis, of whom 56 (24%) presented cognitive impairment not dementia and 68 (30%) presented dementia. Among those with dementia, 87% presented very mild or mild stages (Clinical Dementia Rating 0.5 or 1). The incremental value of each candidate intervening task in a model already containing orientation and word recall was assessed. Category fluency (animal naming) presented the highest incremental value among the six candidate intervening tasks. Reclassification analyses revealed a net gain of 12% among cognitively impaired and 17% among normal participants. A four-point scaled score of the animal naming task was added to three-item temporal orientation and three-word recall to compose the 10-point Cognitive Screener. The education-adjusted 10-point Cognitive Screener outperformed the longer Mini-Mental State Examination for detecting both cognitive impairment (area under the curve 0.85 vs 0.77; p = 0.027) and dementia (area under the curve 0.90 vs 0.83; p = 0.015). Based on empirical data, we have developed a brief and easy-to-use screening strategy with higher accuracy and some practical advantages compared with commonly used tools. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A longitudinal study of memory advantages in bilinguals.

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Jessica K Ljungberg

Full Text Available Typically, studies of cognitive advantages in bilinguals have been conducted previously by using executive and inhibitory tasks (e.g. Simon task and applying cross-sectional designs. This study longitudinally investigated bilingual advantages on episodic memory recall, verbal letter and categorical fluency during the trajectory of life. Monolingual and bilingual participants (n=178 between 35-70 years at baseline were drawn from the Betula Prospective Cohort Study of aging, memory, and health. Results showed that bilinguals outperformed monolinguals at the first testing session and across time both in episodic memory recall and in letter fluency. No interaction with age was found indicating that the rate of change across ages was similar for bilinguals and monolinguals. As predicted and in line with studies applying cross-sectional designs, no advantages associated with bilingualism were found in the categorical fluency task. The results are discussed in the light of successful aging.

Verbal aptitude and the use of grammar information in Serbian language

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Lalović Dejan

2006-01-01

Full Text Available The research presented in this paper was an attempt to find differences in the use of grammatical information carried by the function words in Serbian. The aim was to determine the level of word processing at which grammatical information shows its differential effects in groups of subjects who themselves differ in verbal ability. For this purpose, the psycholinguistic tasks applied were grammatically primed reading aloud and grammatically primed grammatical classification with an appropriate control of extra-linguistic factors that may have affected aforementioned tasks. Verbal aptitude was assessed in a psychometric manner, and the subjects were divided into "high verbal" and "low verbal" groups. Taking into account statistical control of extra-linguistic factors, the results indicate that groups of high verbal and low verbal subjects cannot be differentiated based on reading aloud performance. The high verbal subjects, however, were more efficient in grammatical classification than low verbal subjects. The results also indicated that the presence of grammatical information embedded in function words-primes had a stronger effect on word processing in low verbal group. Such pattern of results testify to the advantage of high verbal subjects in lexical and post lexical processing, while no differences were established in the word recognition processes. The implications of these findings were considered in terms of test construction for the assessment of verbal ability in Serbian language. .

Working memory still needs verbal rehearsal.

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Lucidi, Annalisa; Langerock, Naomi; Hoareau, Violette; Lemaire, Benoît; Camos, Valérie; Barrouillet, Pierre

2016-02-01

The causal role of verbal rehearsal in working memory has recently been called into question. For example, the SOB-CS (Serial Order in a Box-Complex Span) model assumes that there is no maintenance process for the strengthening of items in working memory, but instead a process of removal of distractors that are involuntarily encoded and create interference with memory items. In the present study, we tested the idea that verbal working memory performance can be accounted for without assuming a causal role of the verbal rehearsal process. We demonstrate in two experiments using a complex span task and a Brown-Peterson paradigm that increasing the number of repetitions of the same distractor (the syllable ba that was read aloud at each of its occurrences on screen) has a detrimental effect on the concurrent maintenance of consonants whereas the maintenance of spatial locations remains unaffected. A detailed analysis of the tasks demonstrates that accounting for this effect within the SOB-CS model requires a series of unwarranted assumptions leading to undesirable further predictions contradicted by available experimental evidence. We argue that the hypothesis of a maintenance mechanism based on verbal rehearsal that is impeded by concurrent articulation still provides the simplest and most compelling account of our results.

Auditory verbal learning in drug-free Ecstasy polydrug users.

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Fox, H. C.; Toplis, A. S.; Turner, J. J. D.; Parrott, A. C.

2001-12-01

Drug-free Ecstasy polydrug users have shown impairment on tasks of verbal working memory and memory span. Current research aims to investigate how these deficits may affect the learning of verbal material by administration of the Auditory Verbal Learning Task (AVLT) (Rey, 1964). The task provides a learning curve by assessing immediate memory span over multiple trials. Learning strategies are further analysed by tendencies to confabulate as well as demonstrate either proactive or retroactive interference elicited by a novel 'distractor' list. Three groups completed the task: two groups of 14 Ecstasy users (short- and long-term) and one group of 14 polydrug controls. Compared with controls both Ecstasy groups recalled significantly fewer words and made more confabulation errors on the initial three recall trials as well as a delayed recall trial. Long-term users demonstrated increased confabulation on the initial trials and the novel 'distractor7' trial, compared with short-term users. Only following repeated presentations were both short- and long-term users shown to perform at control levels. As such, deficits in verbal learning may be more related to storage and/or retrieval problems than problems associated with capacity per se. No interference errors were demonstrated by either of the Ecstasy groups. However, a high level of intrusion errors may indicate selective working memory problems associated with longer-term use of the drug. Copyright 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Fine motor movements while drawing during the encoding phase of a serial verbal recall task reduce working memory performance.

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Tindle, Richard; Longstaff, Mitchell G

2016-02-01

The time-based resource-sharing (TBRS) model of working memory indicates that secondary tasks that capture attention for relatively long periods can result in the interference of working memory processing and maintenance. The current study investigates if discrete and continuous movements have differing effects on a concurrent, verbal serial recall task. In the listening condition, participants were asked to recall spoken words presented in lists of six. In the drawing conditions, participants performed the same task while producing discrete (star) or continuous (circle) movements. As hypothesised, participants recalled more words overall in the listening condition compared to the combined drawing conditions. The prediction that the continuous movement condition would reduce recall compared to listening was also supported. Fine-grained analysis at each serial position revealed significantly more words were recalled at mid serial positions in the listening condition, with worst recall for the continuous condition at position 5 compared to the listening and discrete conditions. Kinematic analysis showed that participants increased the size and speed of the continuous movements resulting in a similar duration and number of strokes for each condition. The duration of brief pauses in the discrete condition was associated with the number of words recalled. The results indicate that fine motor movements reduced working memory performance; however, it was not merely performing a movement but the type of the movement that determined how resources were diverted. In the context of the TBRS, continuous movements could be capturing attention for longer periods relative to discrete movements, reducing verbal serial recall. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

[Brain Perfusion, Cognitive Functions, and Vascular Age in Middle Aged Patients With Essential Arterial Hypertension].

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Parfenov, V A; Ostroumova, T M; Pеrepelova, E M; Perepelov, V A; Kochetkov, A I; Ostroumova, O D

2018-05-01

This study aimed to assess the cognitive functions and cerebral blood flow measured with arterial spin labeling (ASL) and their possible correlations with vascular age in untreated middle-aged patients with grade 1-2 essential arterial hypertension (EAH). We examined 73 subjects aged 40-59 years (33 with EAH and 40 healthy volunteers [controls]). Neuropsychological assessment included Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), Trail Making test (part A and part B), Stroop Color and Word Test, verbal fluency test (phonemic verbal fluency and semantic verbal fluency), 10‑item word list learning task. All subjects underwent brain MRI. MRI protocol included ASL. Vascular age was calculated by two techniques - using Framingham Heart Study risk tables and SCORE project scales. Patients with EAH had lower performance on phonemic verbal fluency test and lower mean MoCA score (29.2±1.4 vs. 28.1±1.7 points) compared to controls (13.4±3.2, р=0.002; 29.2±1.4, p=0.001, respectively). White matter hyperintensities (WMH) were present in 7.5 % controls and in 51.5 % EAH patients (р=0.0002). Cerebral blood flow (CBF) in EAH patients was lower in both right (39.1±5.6 vs. 45.8±3.2 ml / 100 g / min) and left frontal lobes of the brain (39.2±6.2 и 45.2±3.6 ml / 100 g / min, respectively) compared to controls (р.

Disturbance effect of music on processing of verbal and spatial memories.

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Iwanaga, Makoto; Ito, Takako

2002-06-01

The purpose of the present study was to examine the disturbance effect of music on performances of memory tasks. Subjects performed a verbal memory task and a spatial memory task in 4 sound conditions, including the presence of vocal music, instrumental music, a natural sound (murmurings of a stream), and no music. 47 undergraduate volunteers were randomly assigned to perform tasks under each condition. Perceived disturbance was highest under the vocal music condition regardless of the type of task. A disturbance in performance by music was observed only with the verbal memory task under the vocal and the instrumental music conditions. These findings were discussed from the perspectives of the working memory hypothesis and the changing state model.

Challenging the Superiority of Phonological Fluency

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Erz, Antonia; Christensen, Bo

2014-01-01

The results of three laboratory experiments contribute to our understanding of effects of phonological fluency on correct recognition and recall of novel brand names, being relevant to the areas of information processing, memory, and branding. Employing the full range of fluency, the results offer...

Verbal learning in the context of background music: no influence of vocals and instrumentals on verbal learning.

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Jäncke, Lutz; Brügger, Eliane; Brummer, Moritz; Scherrer, Stephanie; Alahmadi, Nsreen

2014-03-26

Whether listening to background music enhances verbal learning performance is still a matter of dispute. In this study we investigated the influence of vocal and instrumental background music on verbal learning. 226 subjects were randomly assigned to one of five groups (one control group and 4 experimental groups). All participants were exposed to a verbal learning task. One group served as control group while the 4 further groups served as experimental groups. The control group learned without background music while the 4 experimental groups were exposed to vocal or instrumental musical pieces during learning with different subjective intensity and valence. Thus, we employed 4 music listening conditions (vocal music with high intensity: VOC_HIGH, vocal music with low intensity: VOC_LOW, instrumental music with high intensity: INST_HIGH, instrumental music with low intensity: INST_LOW) and one control condition (CONT) during which the subjects learned the word lists. Since it turned out that the high and low intensity groups did not differ in terms of the rated intensity during the main experiment these groups were lumped together. Thus, we worked with 3 groups: one control group and two groups, which were exposed to background music (vocal and instrumental) during verbal learning. As dependent variable, the number of learned words was used. Here we measured immediate recall during five learning sessions (recall 1 - recall 5) and delayed recall for 15 minutes (recall 6) and 14 days (recall 7) after the last learning session. Verbal learning improved during the first 5 recall sessions without any strong difference between the control and experimental groups. Also the delayed recalls were similar for the three groups. There was only a trend for attenuated verbal learning for the group passively listened to vocals. This learning attenuation diminished during the following learning sessions. The exposure to vocal or instrumental background music during encoding did not

Encoding and immediate retrieval tasks in patients with epilepsy: A functional MRI study of verbal and visual memory.

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Saddiki, Najat; Hennion, Sophie; Viard, Romain; Ramdane, Nassima; Lopes, Renaud; Baroncini, Marc; Szurhaj, William; Reyns, Nicolas; Pruvo, Jean Pierre; Delmaire, Christine

2018-05-01

Medial lobe temporal structures and more specifically the hippocampus play a decisive role in episodic memory. Most of the memory functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies evaluate the encoding phase; the retrieval phase being performed outside the MRI. We aimed to determine the ability to reveal greater hippocampal fMRI activations during retrieval phase. Thirty-five epileptic patients underwent a two-step memory fMRI. During encoding phase, subjects were requested to identify the feminine or masculine gender of faces and words presented, in order to encourage stimulus encoding. One hour after, during retrieval phase, subjects had to recognize the word and face. We used an event-related design to identify hippocampal activations. There was no significant difference between patients with left temporal lobe epilepsy, patients with right temporal lobe epilepsy and patients with extratemporal lobe epilepsy on verbal and visual learning task. For words, patients demonstrated significantly more bilateral hippocampal activation for retrieval task than encoding task and when the tasks were associated than during encoding alone. Significant difference was seen between face-encoding alone and face retrieval alone. This study demonstrates the essential contribution of the retrieval task during a fMRI memory task but the number of patients with hippocampal activations was greater when the two tasks were taken into account. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS.

Effects of teacher expectations on the development of verbal creativity in childhood education / Efectos de las expectativas docentes sobre el desarrollo de la creatividad verbal en la educación infantil

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Franco Justo, Clemente

2008-12-01

Full Text Available Abstract: In this study, we have assessed the effect that teachers’ positive expectations may have on their student’s verbal creativity. To this end, we have worked with an experimental teacher who holds high expectations of the creativity of students, and a control teacher, where this was not the case and whose positive, favourable expectations of pupils were not high. The statistical analyses carried out have showed a significant increase in the verbal creativity variables evaluated (fluency, flexibility and originality in the experimental group in comparison to the scores of the control group.Resumen:En este estudio se evaluó el efecto que una expectativa positiva y favorable por parte del docente podía tener sobre los niveles de creatividad verbal de sus estudiantes. Para ello se contó con la participación de un grupo experimental en el cual se trató de implantar una alta expectativa sobre los niveles de creatividad de sus alumnos, y un grupo control donde no se creó dicha expectativa positiva. Los análisis estadísticos realizados mostraron un incremento significativo en el grupo experimental en las diferentes variables de creatividad verbal evaluadas (fluidez, flexibilidad y originalidad, al comparar sus puntuaciones con las del grupo control.

[Learning virtual routes: what does verbal coding do in working memory?].

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Gyselinck, Valérie; Grison, Élise; Gras, Doriane

2015-03-01

Two experiments were run to complete our understanding of the role of verbal and visuospatial encoding in the construction of a spatial model from visual input. In experiment 1 a dual task paradigm was applied to young adults who learned a route in a virtual environment and then performed a series of nonverbal tasks to assess spatial knowledge. Results indicated that landmark knowledge as asserted by the visual recognition of landmarks was not impaired by any of the concurrent task. Route knowledge, assessed by recognition of directions, was impaired both by a tapping task and a concurrent articulation task. Interestingly, the pattern was modulated when no landmarks were available to perform the direction task. A second experiment was designed to explore the role of verbal coding on the construction of landmark and route knowledge. A lexical-decision task was used as a verbal-semantic dual task, and a tone decision task as a nonsemantic auditory task. Results show that these new concurrent tasks impaired differently landmark knowledge and route knowledge. Results can be interpreted as showing that the coding of route knowledge could be grounded on both a coding of the sequence of events and on a semantic coding of information. These findings also point on some limits of Baddeley's working memory model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Comparison of two fMRI tasks for the evaluation of the expressive language function

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Sanjuan, Ana; Avila, Cesar [Universitat Jaume I, Departamento de Psicologia Basica, Clinica y Psicobiologia, Castellon de la Plana (Spain); Hospital La Fe, Unidad de Epilepsia, Servicio de Neurologia, Valencia (Spain); Bustamante, Juan-Carlos; Forn, Cristina; Ventura-Campos, Noelia; Barros-Loscertales, Alfonso [Universitat Jaume I, Departamento de Psicologia Basica, Clinica y Psicobiologia, Castellon de la Plana (Spain); Martinez, Juan-Carlos [Hospital La Fe, Eresa, Valencia (Spain); Hospital La Fe, Unidad de Epilepsia, Servicio de Neurologia, Valencia (Spain); Villanueva, Vicente [Hospital La Fe, Unidad de Epilepsia, Servicio de Neurologia, Valencia (Spain)

2010-05-15

Presurgical evaluation of language is important in patients who are candidates for neurosurgery since language decline is a frequent complication after an operation. Different functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) tasks, such as the verb generation task (VGT) and the verbal fluency task (VFT) have been employed. Our objective was to compare how effective these tasks are at evaluating language functioning in controls (study 1) and patients (study 2). Eighteen controls and 58 patient candidates for neurosurgery (16 patients with temporal lobe epilepsy and 42 patients with brain lesions: 11 astrocytomas, six cavernomas, 14 gliomas, four AVM and seven meningiomas) were recruited in order to compare the activation patterns of language areas as determined by the VGT and VFT. In both samples, the VGT produced a more specific activation of left Broca's area. In contrast, the VFT yielded a wider and more intense activation of the left Broca's area in controls, as well as other activations in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the striatum. Additionally, both studies showed good agreement on language dominance derived from the tasks, although there was some variability in laterality index scores. Both language tasks are useful in evaluation of expressive language. The VGT is a more specific task, while the VFT is more unspecific but activates language-related areas that are not found with the VGT owing to its phonological component. Therefore, each task contributes to the lateralisation and localisation of expressive language areas with complementary information. The advisability of combining tasks to improve fMRI presurgical evaluation is confirmed. (orig.)

Comparison of two fMRI tasks for the evaluation of the expressive language function

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sanjuan, Ana; Avila, Cesar; Bustamante, Juan-Carlos; Forn, Cristina; Ventura-Campos, Noelia; Barros-Loscertales, Alfonso; Martinez, Juan-Carlos; Villanueva, Vicente

2010-01-01

Presurgical evaluation of language is important in patients who are candidates for neurosurgery since language decline is a frequent complication after an operation. Different functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) tasks, such as the verb generation task (VGT) and the verbal fluency task (VFT) have been employed. Our objective was to compare how effective these tasks are at evaluating language functioning in controls (study 1) and patients (study 2). Eighteen controls and 58 patient candidates for neurosurgery (16 patients with temporal lobe epilepsy and 42 patients with brain lesions: 11 astrocytomas, six cavernomas, 14 gliomas, four AVM and seven meningiomas) were recruited in order to compare the activation patterns of language areas as determined by the VGT and VFT. In both samples, the VGT produced a more specific activation of left Broca's area. In contrast, the VFT yielded a wider and more intense activation of the left Broca's area in controls, as well as other activations in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the striatum. Additionally, both studies showed good agreement on language dominance derived from the tasks, although there was some variability in laterality index scores. Both language tasks are useful in evaluation of expressive language. The VGT is a more specific task, while the VFT is more unspecific but activates language-related areas that are not found with the VGT owing to its phonological component. Therefore, each task contributes to the lateralisation and localisation of expressive language areas with complementary information. The advisability of combining tasks to improve fMRI presurgical evaluation is confirmed. (orig.)

Visiting digital fluency for pre-service teachers in Turkey

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Kadir Demir

2015-04-01

Full Text Available Digital literacy is to know how to use digital tools, however digital fluency is a new concept. Beyond the digital literacy, digital fluency requires skills to know when to use the technology and even why to use the technology. The technology advances rapidly; as a result, education and instruction are getting digitalized. So it could be estimated that; pre-service teachers who are future teachers, should have digital skills. This is the main point of this study which aims to visit pre-service teachers in Turkey from the perspective of digital fluency, give insights about digital fluency, scrutinize its difference from digital literacy and provide literature review on the previous studies about digital fluency. Accordingly; a through literature review was performed. At first, the connection between digital fluency and the 21st century analyzed, then the differences between digital literacy and digital fluency are described. Worldwide and specifically Turkish literature review revealed that, certain studies foresaw the increasing importance of digital fluency based on development of digital devices, and Turkish literature was limited to some scale development and descriptive studies solely determining the digital literacy level of the participants. Thus, it could be stated that further and up-to-date studies are required, which would be conducted with pre-service teachers and current assessment instruments should be developed to determine digital fluency level, considering the rapid advances in technology.

The special status of verbal knowledge in semantic memory: evidence from performance of semantically impaired subjects on verbalizable and non-verbalizable versions of the object decision task.

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Zannino, Gian Daniele; Perri, Roberta; Monaco, Marco; Caltagirone, Carlo; Luzzi, Simona; Carlesimo, Giovanni A

2014-01-01

According to the semantic hub hypothesis, a supramodal semantic hub is equally needed to deal with verbal and extraverbal "surface" representations. Damage to the supramodal hub is thought to underlie the crossmodal impairment observed in selective semantic deficits. In the present paper, we provide evidence supporting an alternative view: we hold that semantic impairment is not equal across domains but affects verbal behavior disproportionately. We investigated our hypothesis by manipulating the verbal load in an object decision task. Two pathological groups showing different levels of semantic impairment were enrolled together with their normal controls. The severe group included 10 subjects with semantic dementia and the mild group 10 subjects with Alzheimer's disease. In keeping with our hypothesis, when shifting from the low verbal load to the high verbal load condition, brain-damaged individuals, as compared to controls, showed a disproportionate impairment as a function of the severity of their semantic deficit. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Assessing Pragmatics: DCTS and Retrospective Verbal Reports

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Beltrán-Palanques, Vicente

2016-01-01

Assessing pragmatic knowledge in the instructed setting is seen as a complex but necessary task, which requires the design of appropriate research methodologies to examine pragmatic performance. This study discusses the use of two different research methodologies, namely those of Discourse Completion Tests/Tasks (DCTs) and verbal reports. Research…

Memory and linguistic/executive functions of children with borderline intellectual functioning.

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Água Dias, Andrea B; Albuquerque, Cristina P; Simões, Mário R

2017-11-08

Children with Borderline Intellectual Functioning (BIF) have received a minimal amount of research attention and have been studied in conjunction with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. The present study intends to broaden the knowledge of BIF, by analyzing domains such as verbal memory and visual memory, as well as tasks that rely simultaneously on memory, executive functions, and language. A cross-sectional, comparison study was carried out between a group of 40 children with BIF (mean age = 10.03; 24 male and 16 female), and a control group of 40 normal children of the same age, gender, and socioeconomic level as the BIF group. The WISC-III Full Scale IQs of the BIF group ranged from 71 to 84. The following instruments were used: Word List, Narrative Memory, Rey Complex Figure, Face Memory, Rapid Naming (both RAN and RAS tests), and Verbal Fluency. The results showed deficits in children with BIF in verbal short-term memory, rapid naming, phonemic verbal fluency, and visual short-term memory, specifically in a visual recognition task, when compared with the control group. Long-term verbal memory was impaired only in older children with BIF and long-term visual memory showed no deficit. Verbal short-term memory stands out as a limitation and visual long-term memory as a strength. Correlations between the WISC-III and neuropsychological tests scores were predominantly low. The study expands the neuropsychological characterization of children with BIF and the implications of the deficits and strengths are stressed.

Diagnostic causal reasoning with verbal information.

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Meder, Björn; Mayrhofer, Ralf

2017-08-01

In diagnostic causal reasoning, the goal is to infer the probability of causes from one or multiple observed effects. Typically, studies investigating such tasks provide subjects with precise quantitative information regarding the strength of the relations between causes and effects or sample data from which the relevant quantities can be learned. By contrast, we sought to examine people's inferences when causal information is communicated through qualitative, rather vague verbal expressions (e.g., "X occasionally causes A"). We conducted three experiments using a sequential diagnostic inference task, where multiple pieces of evidence were obtained one after the other. Quantitative predictions of different probabilistic models were derived using the numerical equivalents of the verbal terms, taken from an unrelated study with different subjects. We present a novel Bayesian model that allows for incorporating the temporal weighting of information in sequential diagnostic reasoning, which can be used to model both primacy and recency effects. On the basis of 19,848 judgments from 292 subjects, we found a remarkably close correspondence between the diagnostic inferences made by subjects who received only verbal information and those of a matched control group to whom information was presented numerically. Whether information was conveyed through verbal terms or numerical estimates, diagnostic judgments closely resembled the posterior probabilities entailed by the causes' prior probabilities and the effects' likelihoods. We observed interindividual differences regarding the temporal weighting of evidence in sequential diagnostic reasoning. Our work provides pathways for investigating judgment and decision making with verbal information within a computational modeling framework. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Impact of Auditory Selective Attention on Verbal Short-Term Memory and Vocabulary Development

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Majerus, Steve; Heiligenstein, Lucie; Gautherot, Nathalie; Poncelet, Martine; Van der Linden, Martial

2009-01-01

This study investigated the role of auditory selective attention capacities as a possible mediator of the well-established association between verbal short-term memory (STM) and vocabulary development. A total of 47 6- and 7-year-olds were administered verbal immediate serial recall and auditory attention tasks. Both task types probed processing…

Processing fluency and impressions of joy and pride

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Kravchenko Yu.E.

2017-12-01

Full Text Available The mere exposure effect consists in the increasing of affective preference (sympathy/ liking for a previously encountered stimulus. Many researches connect it with processing fluency and effort savings (hedonic marking hypothesis [17]. The present study investigates, whether processing fluency connects with other positive emotions. We supposed higher processing fluency correlates with grater intensity of pride and joy. In 1 Experiment participants (n = 98 recognize 10 well-known proverbs in guessing game. Then they marked proverbs about that they would brag to their friends and ranked all proverbs from the most to the lest pleasant. In 2 Experiment 4 groups each of that concluded 24 different complicated joy statements were pairwise compared. Participants (n = 55 chosen most funny and marked unfunny statements. Results shows most sympathy is connect with higher processing fluency, but pride and joy appear more often in connection with more complicated stimuli required lower processing fluency.

The role of verbal labels on flexible memory retrieval at 12-months of age.

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Taylor, Gemma; Liu, Hao; Herbert, Jane S

2016-11-01

The provision of verbal labels enhances 12-month-old infants' memory flexibility across a form change in a puppet imitation task (Herbert, 2011), although the mechanisms for this effect remain unclear. Here we investigate whether verbal labels can scaffold flexible memory retrieval when task difficulty increases and consider the mechanism responsible for the effect of language cues on early memory flexibility. Twelve-month-old infants were provided with English, Chinese, or empty language cues during a difficult imitation task, a combined change in the puppet's colour and form at the test (Hayne et al., 1997). Imitation performance by infants in the English language condition only exceeded baseline performance after the 10-min delay. Thus, verbal labels facilitated flexible memory retrieval on this task. There were no correlations between infants' language comprehension and imitation performance. Thus, it is likely that verbal labels facilitate both attention and categorisation during encoding and retrieval. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A cross-cultural investigation of inhibitory control, generative fluency, and anxiety symptoms in Romanian and Russian preschoolers.

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Cheie, Lavinia; Veraksa, Aleksander; Zinchenko, Yuri; Gorovaya, Alexandra; Visu-Petra, Laura

2015-01-01

The current study focused on the early development of inhibitory control in 5- to 7-year-old children attending kindergarten in two Eastern-European countries, Romania and Russia. These two countries share many aspects of child-rearing and educational practices, previously documented to influence the development of inhibitory control. Using the Lurian-based developmental approach offered by the Developmental Neuropsychological Assessment battery, the study aimed to contribute to cross-cultural developmental neuropsychology by exploring (a) early interrelationships between subcomponents of inhibitory control (response suppression and attention control) and generative fluency (verbal and figural) in these two cultures, as well as (b) the predictive value of external factors (culture and maternal education) and individual differences (age, gender, nonverbal intelligence, trait anxiety) on inhibitory control and fluency outcomes in children from both countries. First, findings in both culture samples suggest that even at this young age, the construct of inhibitory control cannot be considered a unitary entity. Second, differences in maternal education were not predictive of either inhibitory control or fluency scores. However, children's attention control performance varied as a function of culture, and the direction of these cultural effects differed by whether the target outcome involved performance accuracy versus efficiency as an output. Findings also confirmed the previously documented intensive developmental improvement in preschoolers' inhibitory control during this period, influencing measures of response suppression and particularly attention control. Finally, the results further stress the importance of individual differences effects in trait anxiety on attention control efficiency across cultures.

What you say matters: exploring visual-verbal interactions in visual working memory.

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Mate, Judit; Allen, Richard J; Baqués, Josep

2012-01-01

The aim of this study was to explore whether the content of a simple concurrent verbal load task determines the extent of its interference on memory for coloured shapes. The task consisted of remembering four visual items while repeating aloud a pair of words that varied in terms of imageability and relatedness to the task set. At test, a cue appeared that was either the colour or the shape of one of the previously seen objects, with participants required to select the object's other feature from a visual array. During encoding and retention, there were four verbal load conditions: (a) a related, shape-colour pair (from outside the experimental set, i.e., "pink square"); (b) a pair of unrelated but visually imageable, concrete, words (i.e., "big elephant"); (c) a pair of unrelated and abstract words (i.e., "critical event"); and (d) no verbal load. Results showed differential effects of these verbal load conditions. In particular, imageable words (concrete and related conditions) interfered to a greater degree than abstract words. Possible implications for how visual working memory interacts with verbal memory and long-term memory are discussed.

[Connection between the evaluation of positive or negative valence and verbal responses to a lexical decision making task].

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Brouillet, Thibaut; Syssau, Arielle

2005-12-01

Evaluation of the positive or negative valence of a stimulus is an activity that is part of any emotional experience that has been mostly studied using the affective priming paradigm. When the prime and the target have the same valence (e.g. positive prime and positive target), the target response is facilitated as a function of opposing valence conditions (e.g. negative prime and positive target). These studies show that this evaluation is automatic but depends on the nature of the task's implied response because the priming effects are only observed for positive responses, not for negative responses. This result was explained in automatic judgmental tendency model put forth by Abelson and Rosenberg (1958) and Klauer and Stern (1992). In this model, affective priming assumes there is an overlap between both responses, the first response taking precedence as a function of the prime-target valence, and the second response one that is required by the task. We are assuming that another type of response was not foreseen under this model. In fact, upon activating the valence for each of the prime-target elements, two preliminary responses would be activated before the response on the prime-target valence relationship. These responses are directly linked to the prime and target evaluation independently of the prime-target relationship. This hypothesis can be linked to the larger hypothesis whereby the evaluative process is related to two distinct motivational systems corresponding to approach and avoidance behaviour responses (Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 1990; Neuman & Strack, 2000; Cacciopo, Piester & Bernston, 1993). In this study, we use the hypothesis that when a word leads to a positive valence evaluation, this favours a positive verbal response and inversely, a negative valence word favours a negative response. We are testing this hypothesis outside the affective priming paradigm to study to what extent evaluating a word, even when it is not primed, activates both

Language Control Abilities of Late Bilinguals

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Festman, Julia

2012-01-01

Although all bilinguals encounter cross-language interference (CLI), some bilinguals are more susceptible to interference than others. Here, we report on language performance of late bilinguals (Russian/German) on two bilingual tasks (interview, verbal fluency), their language use and switching habits. The only between-group difference was CLI:…

Behavioural and neural evidence for the impact of fluency context on conscious memory.

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Gomes, Carlos Alexandre; Mecklinger, Axel; Zimmer, Hubert

2017-07-01

It has been recently suggested that fluency may impact recognition memory performance when the fluency context varies from trial-to-trial. Surprisingly, such an effect has proved difficult to detect in the masked priming paradigm, one of the most popular means to increase fluency-based memory judgements. We conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment in which participants encoded words at study and, at test, performed a recognition memory task within a masked priming procedure. In order to optimise the chances of finding priming effects on recognition memory performance, we used low-frequency words, which have been shown to increase hits relative to false alarms and enhance masked priming effects. Fluency context was manipulated by either mixing primed and unprimed trials [Random context (RC) experiment] or blocking primed and unprimed trials [Blocked context (BC) experiment]. Behaviourally, priming affected high-confidence memory performance only in the RC experiment. This behavioural effect correlated positively with neural priming in several recognition memory regions. Moreover, we observed a functional coupling between the left middle temporal gyrus and the left parietal and posterior cingulate cortices that was greater for primed relative to unprimed words. In contrast, in the BC experiment, despite similar activity in recognition-memory-related regions, we did not find any significant correlations between neural and behavioural priming. Finally, we observed striking differences in the neural correlates of masked priming between the RC and BC experiments not only in location but also in direction of the neural response. Possible implications of these findings are discussed. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Metamemory and memory for a wide range of font sizes: What is the contribution of perceptual fluency?

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Undorf, Monika; Zimdahl, Malte F

2018-04-26

Words printed in a larger 48-point font are judged to be more memorable than words printed in a smaller 18-point font, although font size does not affect actual memory. To clarify the basis of this font size effect on metamemory and memory, 4 experiments investigated how presenting words in 48 (Experiment 1) or 4 (Experiments 2 to 4) font sizes between 6 point and 500 point affected judgments of learning (JOLs) and recall performance. Response times in lexical decision tasks were used to measure perceptual fluency. In all experiments, perceptual fluency was lower for words presented in very small and very large font sizes than for words presented in intermediate font sizes. In contrast, JOLs increased monotonically with font size, even beyond the point where a large font impaired perceptual fluency. Assessments of people's metacognitive beliefs about font size revealed that the monotonic increase in JOLs was not due to beliefs masking perceptual fluency effects (Experiment 3). Also, JOLs still increased across the whole range of font sizes when perceptual fluency was made salient at study (Experiment 4). In all experiments but Experiment 4, recall performance increased with increasing font size, although to a lesser extent than JOLs. Overall, the current study supports the idea that metacognitive beliefs underlie font size effects in metamemory. As important, it reveals that people's font size beliefs have some accuracy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Verbal makes it positive, spatial makes it negative: working memory biases judgments, attention, and moods.

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Storbeck, Justin; Watson, Philip

2014-12-01

Prior research has suggested that emotion and working memory domains are integrated, such that positive affect enhances verbal working memory, whereas negative affect enhances spatial working memory (Gray, 2004; Storbeck, 2012). Simon (1967) postulated that one feature of emotion and cognition integration would be reciprocal connectedness (i.e., emotion influences cognition and cognition influences emotion). We explored whether affective judgments and attention to affective qualities are biased by the activation of verbal and spatial working memory mind-sets. For all experiments, participants completed a 2-back verbal or spatial working memory task followed by an endorsement task (Experiments 1 & 2), word-pair selection task (Exp. 3), or attentional dot-probe task (Exp. 4). Participants who had an activated verbal, compared with spatial, working memory mind-set were more likely to endorse pictures (Exp. 1) and words (Exp. 2) as being more positive and to select the more positive word pair out of a set of word pairs that went 'together best' (Exp. 3). Additionally, people who completed the verbal working memory task took longer to disengage from positive stimuli, whereas those who completed the spatial working memory task took longer to disengage from negative stimuli (Exp. 4). Interestingly, across the 4 experiments, we observed higher levels of self-reported negative affect for people who completed the spatial working memory task, which was consistent with their endorsement and attentional bias toward negative stimuli. Therefore, emotion and working memory may have a reciprocal connectedness allowing for bidirectional influence.

Automatic and controlled processing and the Broad Autism Phenotype.

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Camodeca, Amy; Voelker, Sylvia

2016-01-30

Research related to verbal fluency in the Broad Autism Phenotype (BAP) is limited and dated, but generally suggests intact abilities in the context of weaknesses in other areas of executive function (Hughes et al., 1999; Wong et al., 2006; Delorme et al., 2007). Controlled processing, the generation of search strategies after initial, automated responses are exhausted (Spat, 2013), has yet to be investigated in the BAP, and may be evidenced in verbal fluency tasks. One hundred twenty-nine participants completed the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System Verbal Fluency test (D-KEFS; Delis et al., 2001) and the Broad Autism Phenotype Questionnaire (BAPQ; Hurley et al., 2007). The BAP group (n=53) produced significantly fewer total words during the 2nd 15" interval compared to the Non-BAP (n=76) group. Partial correlations indicated similar relations between verbal fluency variables for each group. Regression analyses predicting 2nd 15" interval scores suggested differentiation between controlled and automatic processing skills in both groups. Results suggest adequate automatic processing, but slowed development of controlled processing strategies in the BAP, and provide evidence for similar underlying cognitive constructs for both groups. Controlled processing was predictive of Block Design score for Non-BAP participants, and was predictive of Pragmatic Language score on the BAPQ for BAP participants. These results are similar to past research related to strengths and weaknesses in the BAP, respectively, and suggest that controlled processing strategy use may be required in instances of weak lower-level skills. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

The role of selected lexical factors on confrontation naming accuracy, speed, and fluency in adults who do and do not stutter.

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Newman, Rochelle S; Bernstein Ratner, Nan

2007-02-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether lexical access in adults who stutter (AWS) differs from that in people who do not stutter. Specifically, the authors examined the role of 3 lexical factors on naming speed, accuracy, and fluency: word frequency, neighborhood density, and neighborhood frequency. If stuttering results from an impairment in lexical access, these factors were hypothesized to differentially affect AWS performance on a confrontation naming task. Twenty-five AWS and 25 normally fluent comparison speakers, matched for age and education, participated in a confrontation naming task designed to explore within-speaker performance on naming accuracy, speed, and fluency based on stimulus word frequency and neighborhood characteristics. Accuracy, fluency, and reaction time (from acoustic waveform analysis) were computed. In general, AWS demonstrated the same effects of lexical factors on their naming as did adults who do not stutter. However, accuracy of naming was reduced for AWS. Stuttering rate was influenced by word frequency but not other factors. Results suggest that AWS could have a fundamental deficit in lexical retrieval, but this deficit is unlikely to be at the level of the word's abstract phonological representation. Implications for further research are discussed.

A comparison of serial order short-term memory effects across verbal and musical domains.

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Gorin, Simon; Mengal, Pierre; Majerus, Steve

2018-04-01

Recent studies suggest that the mechanisms involved in the short-term retention of serial order information may be shared across short-term memory (STM) domains such as verbal and visuospatial STM. Given the intrinsic sequential organization of musical material, the study of STM for musical information may be particularly informative about serial order retention processes and their domain-generality. The present experiment examined serial order STM for verbal and musical sequences in participants with no advanced musical expertise and experienced musicians. Serial order STM for verbal information was assessed via a serial order reconstruction task for digit sequences. In the musical domain, serial order STM was assessed using a novel melodic sequence reconstruction task maximizing the retention of tone order information. We observed that performance for the verbal and musical tasks was characterized by sequence length as well as primacy and recency effects. Serial order errors in both tasks were characterized by similar transposition gradients and ratios of fill-in:infill errors. These effects were observed for both participant groups, although the transposition gradients and ratios of fill-in:infill errors showed additional specificities for musician participants in the musical task. The data support domain-general serial order STM effects but also suggest the existence of additional domain-specific effects. Implications for models of serial order STM in verbal and musical domains are discussed.

Anatomical Correlates of Non-Verbal Perception in Dementia Patients

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Pin-Hsuan Lin

2016-08-01

Full Text Available Purpose: Patients with dementia who have dissociations in verbal and non-verbal sound processing may offer insights into the anatomic basis for highly related auditory modes. Methods: To determine the neuronal networks on non-verbal perception, 16 patients with Alzheimer’s dementia (AD, 15 with behavior variant fronto-temporal dementia (bv-FTD, 14 with semantic dementia (SD were evaluated and compared with 15 age-matched controls. Neuropsychological and auditory perceptive tasks were included to test the ability to compare pitch changes, scale-violated melody and for naming and associating with environmental sound. The brain 3D T1 images were acquired and voxel-based morphometry (VBM was used to compare and correlated the volumetric measures with task scores. Results: The SD group scored the lowest among 3 groups in pitch or scale-violated melody tasks. In the environmental sound test, the SD group also showed impairment in naming and also in associating sound with pictures. The AD and bv-FTD groups, compared with the controls, showed no differences in all tests. VBM with task score correlation showed that atrophy in the right supra-marginal and superior temporal gyri was strongly related to deficits in detecting violated scales, while atrophy in the bilateral anterior temporal poles and left medial temporal structures was related to deficits in environmental sound recognition. Conclusions: Auditory perception of pitch, scale-violated melody or environmental sound reflects anatomical degeneration in dementia patients and the processing of non-verbal sounds is mediated by distinct neural circuits.

Early 'visual' cortex activation correlates with superior verbal memory performance in the blind.

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Amedi, Amir; Raz, Noa; Pianka, Pazit; Malach, Rafael; Zohary, Ehud

2003-07-01

The visual cortex may be more modifiable than previously considered. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in ten congenitally blind human participants, we found robust occipital activation during a verbal-memory task (in the absence of any sensory input), as well as during verb generation and Braille reading. We also found evidence for reorganization and specialization of the occipital cortex, along the anterior-posterior axis. Whereas anterior regions showed preference for Braille, posterior regions (including V1) showed preference for verbal-memory and verb generation (which both require memory of verbal material). No such occipital activation was found in sighted subjects. This difference between the groups was mirrored by superior performance of the blind in various verbal-memory tasks. Moreover, the magnitude of V1 activation during the verbal-memory condition was highly correlated with the blind individual's abilities in a variety of verbal-memory tests, suggesting that the additional occipital activation may have a functional role.

Effect of task demands on dual coding of pictorial stimuli.

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Babbitt, B C

1982-01-01

Recent studies have suggested that verbal labeling of a picture does not occur automatically. Although several experiments using paired-associate tasks produced little evidence indicating the use of a verbal code with picture stimuli, the tasks were probably not sensitive to whether the codes were activated initially. It is possible that verbal labels were activated at input, but not used later in performing the tasks. The present experiment used a color-naming interference task in order to assess, with a more sensitive measure, the amount of verbal coding occurring in response to word or picture input. Subjects named the color of ink in which words were printed following either word or picture input. If verbal labeling of the input occurs, then latency of color naming should increase when the input item and color-naming word are related. The results provided substantial evidence of such verbal activation when the input items were words. However, the presence of verbal activation with picture input was a function of task demands. Activation occurred when a recall memory test was used, but not when a recognition memory test was used. The results support the conclusion that name information (labels) need not be activated during presentation of visual stimuli.

The role of auditory temporal cues in the fluency of stuttering adults

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Juliana Furini

Full Text Available ABSTRACT Purpose: to compare the frequency of disfluencies and speech rate in spontaneous speech and reading in adults with and without stuttering in non-altered and delayed auditory feedback (NAF, DAF. Methods: participants were 30 adults: 15 with Stuttering (Research Group - RG, and 15 without stuttering (Control Group - CG. The procedures were: audiological assessment and speech fluency evaluation in two listening conditions, normal and delayed auditory feedback (100 milliseconds delayed by Fono Tools software. Results: the DAF caused a significant improvement in the fluency of spontaneous speech in RG when compared to speech under NAF. The effect of DAF was different in CG, because it increased the common disfluencies and the total of disfluencies in spontaneous speech and reading, besides showing an increase in the frequency of stuttering-like disfluencies in reading. The intergroup analysis showed significant differences in the two speech tasks for the two listening conditions in the frequency of stuttering-like disfluencies and in the total of disfluencies, and in the flows of syllable and word-per-minute in the NAF. Conclusion: the results demonstrated that delayed auditory feedback promoted fluency in spontaneous speech of adults who stutter, without interfering in the speech rate. In non-stuttering adults an increase occurred in the number of common disfluencies and total of disfluencies as well as reduction of speech rate in spontaneous speech and reading.

The impact of aging and hearing status on verbal short-term memory.

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Verhaegen, Clémence; Collette, Fabienne; Majerus, Steve

2014-01-01

The aim of this study is to assess the impact of hearing status on age-related decrease in verbal short-term memory (STM) performance. This was done by administering a battery of verbal STM tasks to elderly and young adult participants matched for hearing thresholds, as well as to young normal-hearing control participants. The matching procedure allowed us to assess the importance of hearing loss as an explanatory factor of age-related STM decline. We observed that elderly participants and hearing-matched young participants showed equal levels of performance in all verbal STM tasks, and performed overall lower than the normal-hearing young control participants. This study provides evidence for recent theoretical accounts considering reduced hearing level as an important explanatory factor of poor auditory-verbal STM performance in older adults.

Planning Abilities in Bilingual and Monolingual Children: Role of Verbal Mediation

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Gangopadhyay, Ishanti; McDonald, Margarethe; Ellis Weismer, Susan; Kaushanskaya, Margarita

2018-01-01

We examined the role of verbal mediation in planning performance of English–Spanish-speaking bilingual children and monolingual English-speaking children, between the ages of 9 and 12 years. To measure planning, children were administered the Tower of London (ToL) task. In a dual-task paradigm, children completed ToL problems under three conditions: with no secondary task (baseline), with articulatory suppression, and with non-verbal motor suppression. Analyses revealed generally shorter planning times for bilinguals than monolinguals but both groups performed similarly on number of moves and execution times. Additionally, bilingual children were more efficient at planning throughout the duration of the task while monolingual children showed significant gains with more practice. Children’s planning times under articulatory suppression were significantly shorter than under motor suppression as well as the baseline condition, and there was no difference in planning times between monolingual and bilingual children during articulatory suppression. These results demonstrate that bilingualism influences performance on a complex EF measure like planning, and that these effects are not related to verbal mediation. PMID:29593620

Planning Abilities in Bilingual and Monolingual Children: Role of Verbal Mediation.

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Gangopadhyay, Ishanti; McDonald, Margarethe; Ellis Weismer, Susan; Kaushanskaya, Margarita

2018-01-01

We examined the role of verbal mediation in planning performance of English-Spanish-speaking bilingual children and monolingual English-speaking children, between the ages of 9 and 12 years. To measure planning, children were administered the Tower of London (ToL) task. In a dual-task paradigm, children completed ToL problems under three conditions: with no secondary task (baseline), with articulatory suppression, and with non-verbal motor suppression. Analyses revealed generally shorter planning times for bilinguals than monolinguals but both groups performed similarly on number of moves and execution times. Additionally, bilingual children were more efficient at planning throughout the duration of the task while monolingual children showed significant gains with more practice. Children's planning times under articulatory suppression were significantly shorter than under motor suppression as well as the baseline condition, and there was no difference in planning times between monolingual and bilingual children during articulatory suppression. These results demonstrate that bilingualism influences performance on a complex EF measure like planning, and that these effects are not related to verbal mediation.

Older but still fluent? Insights from the intrinsically active baseline configuration of the aging brain using a data driven graph-theoretical approach.

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Muller, Angela M; Mérillat, Susan; Jäncke, Lutz

2016-02-15

A major part of our knowledge about the functioning of the aging brain comes from task-induced activation paradigms. However, the aging brain's intrinsic functional organization may be already a limiting factor for the outcome of an actual behavior. In order to get a better understanding of how this functional baseline configuration of the aging brain may affect cognitive performance, we analyzed task-free fMRI data of older 186 participants (mean age=70.4, 97 female) and their performance data in verbal fluency: First, we conducted an intrinsic connectivity contrast analysis (ICC) for the purpose of evaluating the brain regions whose degree of connectedness was significantly correlated with fluency performance. Secondly, using connectivity analyses we investigated how the clusters from the ICC functionally related to the other major resting-state networks. Apart from the importance of intact fronto-parietal long-range connections, the preserved capacity of the DMN for a finely attuned interaction with the executive-control network and the language network seems to be crucial for successful verbal fluency performance in older people. We provide further evidence that the right frontal regions might be more prominently affected by age-related decline. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Effects of caffeine intake and smoking on neurocognition in schizophrenia.

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Núñez, Christian; Stephan-Otto, Christian; Cuevas-Esteban, Jorge; Maria Haro, Josep; Huerta-Ramos, Elena; Ochoa, Susana; Usall, Judith; Brébion, Gildas

2015-12-30

Although most studies support the beneficial effects of caffeine on neurocognition, its effects have never been assessed in psychiatric patients. In addition, results from studies in smokers are contradictory. Moreover, there are no data available about the neurocognitive effects of caffeine and tobacco together. We explored the concomitant effects of regular caffeine and tobacco intake on neurocognition in 52 schizophrenic patients and 61 healthy controls. Verbal fluency, processing speed, and working, visual and verbal memory were assessed. For each measurement, two tasks with two levels of complexity were administered. Our results showed that caffeine intake had beneficial effects on male schizophrenic patients only in complex tasks requiring deeper cognitive processing (semantic fluency, cognitive speed, working memory, and visual memory). Female patients and controls were unaffected. In contrast, smoking had a negative effect on male, but not on female, schizophrenic patients in semantic fluency. The effects of smoking in controls were inconsistent. In conclusion, our data showed, for the first time, beneficial effects of caffeine intake on neurocognition in male schizophrenic patients. These data suggest that further research of therapeutics based on caffeine is needed, as this could be beneficial for schizophrenic patients. In contrast, smoking appears to be detrimental. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Action video gaming and the brain: fMRI effects without behavioral effects in visual and verbal cognitive tasks.

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Richlan, Fabio; Schubert, Juliane; Mayer, Rebecca; Hutzler, Florian; Kronbichler, Martin

2018-01-01

In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we compared task performance together with brain activation in a visuospatial task (VST) and a letter detection task (LDT) between longtime action video gamers ( N  =   14) and nongamers ( N  =   14) in order to investigate possible effects of gaming on cognitive and brain abilities. Based on previous research, we expected advantages in performance for experienced action video gamers accompanied by less activation (due to higher efficiency) as measured by fMRI in the frontoparietal attention network. Contrary to these expectations, we did not find differences in overall task performance, nor in brain activation during the VST. We identified, however, a significantly different increase in the BOLD signal from a baseline task to the LDT in action video gamers compared with nongamers. This increased activation was evident in a number of frontoparietal regions including the left middle paracingulate cortex, the left superior frontal sulcus, the opercular part of the left inferior frontal gyrus, and the left and right posterior parietal cortex. Furthermore, we found increased activation in the triangular part of the left inferior frontal gyrus in gamers relative to nongamers when activation during the LDT was compared with activation during the VST. In sum, the expected positive relation between action video game experience and cognitive performance could not be confirmed. Despite their comparable task performance, however, gamers and nongamers exhibited clear-cut differences in brain activation patterns presumably reflecting differences in neural engagement, especially during verbal cognitive tasks.

Verbal Thinking and Inner Speech Use in Autism Spectrum Disorder.

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Williams, David M; Peng, Cynthia; Wallace, Gregory L

2016-12-01

The extent to which cognition is verbally mediated in neurotypical individuals is the subject of debate in cognitive neuropsychology, as well as philosophy and psychology. Studying "verbal thinking" in developmental/neuropsychological disorders provides a valuable opportunity to inform theory building, as well as clinical practice. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive, critical review of such studies among individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). ASD involves severe social-communication deficits and limitations in cognitive/behavioural flexibility. The prevailing view in the field is that neither cognition nor behaviour is mediated verbally in ASD, and that this contributes to diagnostic features. However, our review suggests that, on the contrary, most studies to date actually find that among people with ASD cognitive task performance is either a) mediated verbally in a typical fashion, or b) not mediated verbally, but at no obvious cost to overall task performance. Overall though, these studies have methodological limitations and thus clear-cut conclusions are not possible at this stage. The aim of the review is to take stock of existing empirical findings, as well as to help develop the directions for future research that will resolve the many outstanding issues in this field.

Functional MRI study of verbal working memory in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

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Lu Youran; Geng Daoying; Feng Xiaoyuan; Du Yasong; Zhao Zhimin

2006-01-01

Objective: To study the verbal working memory of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as well as to explore the characteristics of functional areas of verbal working memory with blood oxygenation level dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Method: Eighteen children were selected in the study. There were 9 ADHD children with inattention subtype and 9 healthy subjects. All patients and healthy subjects completed the cognitive examination and the block- designed N-block verbal working memory task using a GE 3.0 T MR. Data were analyzed by AFNI software. Result: The neural activations of ADHD's children are lower than that of control under verbal working memory. Especially in the areas of bilateral middle frontal gyri and inferior frontal gyri, bilateral superior parietal lobules and inferior parietal lobules, right basal ganglia in the 1-BACK task. And bilateral middle frontal gyri and inferior frontal gyri, bilateral superior parietal lobules, left cortex inferior parietallobule, right basal ganglia, anterior cingulatecortex in the 2-BACK task. Conclusion: The hypofunctional areas of verbal working memory (including bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and parietal cortex) can be seen in the ADHD children especially who also has lower activation of anterior cingulate cortex under 2-BACK task. (authors)

Hemispheric Lateralization of Verbal and Spatial Working Memory during Adolescence

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Nagel, Bonnie J.; Herting, Megan M.; Maxwell, Emily C.; Bruno, Richard; Fair, Damien

2013-01-01

Adult functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) literature suggests that a left-right hemispheric dissociation may exist between verbal and spatial working memory (WM), respectively. However, investigation of this type has been obscured by incomparable verbal and spatial WM tasks and/or visual inspection at arbitrary thresholds as means to…

Atypical performance patterns on Delis-Kaplan Executive Functioning System Color-Word Interference Test: Cognitive switching and learning ability in older adults.

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Berg, Jody-Lynn; Swan, Natasha M; Banks, Sarah J; Miller, Justin B

2016-09-01

Cognitive set shifting requires flexible application of lower level processes. The Delis-Kaplan Executive Functioning System (DKEFS) Color-Word Interference Test (CWIT) is commonly used to clinically assess cognitive set shifting. An atypical pattern of performance has been observed on the CWIT; a subset of individuals perform faster, with equal or fewer errors, on the more difficult inhibition/switching than the inhibition trial. This study seeks to explore the cognitive underpinnings of this atypical pattern. It is hypothesized that atypical patterns on CWIT will be associated with better performance on underlying cognitive measures of attention, working memory, and learning when compared to typical CWIT patterns. Records from 239 clinical referrals (age: M = 68.09 years, SD = 10.62; education: M = 14.87 years, SD = 2.73) seen for a neuropsychological evaluation as part of diagnostic work up in an outpatient dementia and movement disorders clinic were sampled. The standard battery of tests included measures of attention, learning, fluency, executive functioning, and working memory. Analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were conducted to compare the cognitive performance of those with typical versus atypical CWIT patterns. An atypical pattern of performance was confirmed in 23% of our sample. Analyses revealed a significant group difference in acquisition of information on both nonverbal (Brief Visuospatial Memory Test-Revised, BVMT-R total recall), F(1, 213) = 16.61, p < .001, and verbal (Hopkins Verbal Learning Test-Revised, HVLT-R total recall) learning tasks, F(1, 181) = 6.43, p < .01, and semantic fluency (Animal Naming), F(1, 232) = 7.57, p = .006, with the atypical group performing better on each task. Effect sizes were larger for nonverbal (Cohen's d = 0.66) than verbal learning (Cohen's d = 0.47) and semantic fluency (Cohen's d = 0.43). Individuals demonstrating an atypical pattern of performance on the CWIT inhibition/switching trial also demonstrated relative

The elimination of positive priming with increasing prime duration reflects a transition from perceptual fluency to disfluency rather than bias against primed words.

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Potter, Kevin W; Donkin, Chris; Huber, David E

2018-03-01

With immediate repetition priming of forced choice perceptual identification, short prime durations produce positive priming (i.e., priming the target leads to higher accuracy, while priming the foil leads to lower accuracy). Many theories explain positive priming following short duration primes as reflecting increased perceptual fluency for the primed target (i.e., decreased identification latency). However, most studies only examine either accuracy or response times, rather than considering the joint constraints of response times and accuracy to properly address the role of decision biases and response caution. This is a critical oversight because several theories propose that the transition to negative priming following a long duration prime reflects a decision strategy to compensate for the effect of increased perceptual fluency. In contrast, the nROUSE model of Huber and O'Reilly (2003) explains this transition as reflecting perceptual habituation, and thus a change to perceptual disfluency. We confirmed this prediction by applying a sequential sampling model (the diffusion race model) to accuracy and response time distributions from a new single item same-different version of the priming task. In this way, we measured strategic biases and perceptual fluency in each condition for each subject. The nROUSE model was only applied to accuracy from the original forced-choice version of the priming task. This application of nROUSE produced separate predictions for each subject regarding the degree of fluency and disfluency in each condition, and these predictions were confirmed by the drift rate parameters (i.e., fluency) from the response time model in contrast to the threshold parameters (i.e., bias). Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Reading Fluency Techniques from the Bottom-up: A Grounded Theory

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Seyyed Ali Ostovar-Namaghi

2015-09-01

Full Text Available In many EFL contexts, including language education milieu in Iran, reading fluency is usually taken for granted since language education in public high schools mainly focuses on reading comprehension. Taking the detrimental effect of fluency deficiency into account, some practitioners foreground reading fluency and try to develop it early on. To give voice to their theories of practice, this qualitative study interviewed teachers who were willing to share their experience with the researchers. In line with grounded theory, the iterative process of data collection and analysis continued until the conceptualization of fluency development techniques was saturated. The techniques emerged are conducive to fluency development and as such the findings have clear implications for practitioners and policy makers nation-wide.

What’s in a name depends on the type of name: The relationships between semantic and phonological access, reading fluency and reading comprehension

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Poulsen, Mads; Elbro, Carsten

2013-01-01

examined both components in naming tasks – with isolated letters (phonological) and pictures (semantic). Seventy-five Grade 5 students were administered measures of letter and picture naming speed, word and nonword reading fluency, reading comprehension, together with control measures of vocabulary....... The results showed that letter naming was a unique predictor of word reading fluency, while picture naming was not. Conversely, picture naming speed contributed unique variance to reading comprehension, while letter naming did not. The results indicate that phonological and semantic lexical access speed...

Perceptual fluency and judgments of vocal aesthetics and stereotypicality.

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Babel, Molly; McGuire, Grant

2015-05-01

Research has shown that processing dynamics on the perceiver's end determine aesthetic pleasure. Specifically, typical objects, which are processed more fluently, are perceived as more attractive. We extend this notion of perceptual fluency to judgments of vocal aesthetics. Vocal attractiveness has traditionally been examined with respect to sexual dimorphism and the apparent size of a talker, as reconstructed from the acoustic signal, despite evidence that gender-specific speech patterns are learned social behaviors. In this study, we report on a series of three experiments using 60 voices (30 females) to compare the relationship between judgments of vocal attractiveness, stereotypicality, and gender categorization fluency. Our results indicate that attractiveness and stereotypicality are highly correlated for female and male voices. Stereotypicality and categorization fluency were also correlated for male voices, but not female voices. Crucially, stereotypicality and categorization fluency interacted to predict attractiveness, suggesting the role of perceptual fluency is present, but nuanced, in judgments of human voices. © 2014 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Predictors of Verbal Working Memory in Children with Cerebral Palsy

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Peeters, Marieke; Verhoeven, Ludo; de Moor, Jan

2009-01-01

The goal of the present study was to examine the precursors of verbal working memory in 52 children with cerebral palsy with varying degrees of speech impairments in the first grade of special education. Following Baddeley's model of working memory, children's verbal working memory was measured by means of a forced-recognition task. As precursors…

Affect intensity and processing fluency of deterrents.

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Holman, Andrei

2013-01-01

The theory of emotional intensity (Brehm, 1999) suggests that the intensity of affective states depends on the magnitude of their current deterrents. Our study investigated the role that fluency--the subjective experience of ease of information processing--plays in the emotional intensity modulations as reactions to deterrents. Following an induction phase of good mood, we manipulated both the magnitude of deterrents (using sets of photographs with pre-tested potential to instigate an emotion incompatible with the pre-existent affective state--pity) and their processing fluency (normal vs. enhanced through subliminal priming). Current affective state and perception of deterrents were then measured. In the normal processing conditions, the results revealed the cubic effect predicted by the emotional intensity theory, with the initial affective state being replaced by the one appropriate to the deterrent only in participants exposed to the high magnitude deterrence. In the enhanced fluency conditions the emotional intensity pattern was drastically altered; also, the replacement of the initial affective state occurred at a lower level of deterrence magnitude (moderate instead of high), suggesting the strengthening of deterrence emotional impact by enhanced fluency.

Mere exposure effect: A consequence of direct and indirect fluency-preference links.

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Willems, Sylvie; Van der Linden, Martial

2006-06-01

In three experiments, picture quality between test items was manipulated to examine whether subjects' expectations about the fluency normally associated with these different stimuli might influence the effects of fluency on preference or familiarity-based recognition responses. The results showed that fluency due to pre-exposure influenced responses less when objects were presented with high picture quality, suggesting that attributions of fluency to preference and familiarity are adjusted according to expectations about the different test pictures. However, this expectations influence depended on subjects' awareness of these different quality levels. Indeed, imperceptible differences seemed not to induce expectations about the test item fluency. In this context, fluency due to both picture quality and pre-exposure influenced direct responses. Conversely, obvious, and noticed, differences in test picture quality did no affect responses, suggesting that expectations moderated attributions of fluency only when fluency normally associated with these different stimuli was perceptible but difficult to assess.

Effects of verbal and nonverbal interference on spatial and object visual working memory.

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Postle, Bradley R; Desposito, Mark; Corkin, Suzanne

2005-03-01

We tested the hypothesis that a verbal coding mechanism is necessarily engaged by object, but not spatial, visual working memory tasks. We employed a dual-task procedure that paired n-back working memory tasks with domain-specific distractor trials inserted into each interstimulus interval of the n-back tasks. In two experiments, object n-back performance demonstrated greater sensitivity to verbal distraction, whereas spatial n-back performance demonstrated greater sensitivity to motion distraction. Visual object and spatial working memory may differ fundamentally in that the mnemonic representation of featural characteristics of objects incorporates a verbal (perhaps semantic) code, whereas the mnemonic representation of the location of objects does not. Thus, the processes supporting working memory for these two types of information may differ in more ways than those dictated by the "what/where" organization of the visual system, a fact more easily reconciled with a component process than a memory systems account of working memory function.

Cerebellar transcranial direct current stimulation modulates verbal working memory.

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Boehringer, Andreas; Macher, Katja; Dukart, Juergen; Villringer, Arno; Pleger, Burkhard

2013-07-01

Neuroimaging studies show cerebellar activations in a wide range of cognitive tasks and patients with cerebellar lesions often present cognitive deficits suggesting a cerebellar role in higher-order cognition. We used cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), known to inhibit neuronal excitability, over the cerebellum to investigate if cathodal tDCS impairs verbal working memory, an important higher-order cognitive faculty. We tested verbal working memory as measured by forward and backward digit spans in 40 healthy young participants before and after applying cathodal tDCS (2 mA, stimulation duration 25 min) to the right cerebellum using a randomized, sham-controlled, double-blind, cross-over design. In addition, we tested the effect of cerebellar tDCS on word reading, finger tapping and a visually cued sensorimotor task. In line with lower digit spans in patients with cerebellar lesions, cerebellar tDCS reduced forward digit spans and blocked the practice dependent increase in backward digit spans. No effects of tDCS on word reading, finger tapping or the visually cued sensorimotor task were found. Our results support the view that the cerebellum contributes to verbal working memory as measured by forward and backward digit spans. Moreover, the induction of reversible "virtual cerebellar lesions" in healthy individuals by means of tDCS may improve our understanding of the mechanistic basis of verbal working memory deficits in patients with cerebellar lesions. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A Modified Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test Predicts Behavioral Variant Frontotemporal Dementia Better Than Executive Function Tests

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Matthias L. Schroeter

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD is characterized by deep alterations in behavior and personality. Although revised diagnostic criteria agree for executive dysfunction as most characteristic, impairments in social cognition are also suggested. The study aimed at identifying those neuropsychological and behavioral parameters best discriminating between bvFTD and healthy controls. Eighty six patients were diagnosed with possible or probable bvFTD according to Rascovsky et al. (2011 and compared with 43 healthy age-matched controls. Neuropsychological performance was assessed with a modified Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET, Stroop task, Trail Making Test (TMT, Hamasch-Five-Point Test (H5PT, and semantic and phonemic verbal fluency tasks. Behavior was assessed with the Apathy Evaluation Scale, Frontal Systems Behavioral Scale, and Bayer Activities of Daily Living Scale. Each test’s discriminatory power was investigated by Receiver Operating Characteristic curves calculating the area under the curve (AUC. bvFTD patients performed significantly worse than healthy controls in all neuropsychological tests. Discriminatory power (AUC was highest in behavioral questionnaires, high in verbal fluency tasks and the RMET, and lower in executive function tests such as the Stroop task, TMT and H5PT. As fluency tasks depend on several cognitive functions, not only executive functions, results suggest that the RMET discriminated better between bvFTD and control subjects than other executive tests. Social cognition should be incorporated into diagnostic criteria for bvFTD in the future, such as in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11, as already suggested in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM-5.

EEG correlates of verbal and nonverbal working memory

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Danker Jared

2005-11-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Distinct cognitive processes support verbal and nonverbal working memory, with verbal memory depending specifically on the subvocal rehearsal of items. Methods We recorded scalp EEG while subjects performed a Sternberg task. In each trial, subjects judged whether a probe item was one of the three items in a study list. Lists were composed of stimuli from one of five pools whose items either were verbally rehearsable (letters, words, pictures of common objects or resistant to verbal rehearsal (sinusoidal grating patterns, single dot locations. Results We found oscillatory correlates unique to verbal stimuli in the θ (4–8 Hz, α (9–12 Hz, β (14–28 Hz, and γ (30–50 Hz frequency bands. Verbal stimuli generally elicited greater power than did nonverbal stimuli. Enhanced verbal power was found bilaterally in the θ band, over frontal and occipital areas in the α and β bands, and centrally in the γ band. When we looked specifically for cases where oscillatory power in the time interval between item presentations was greater than oscillatory power during item presentation, we found enhanced β activity in the frontal and occipital regions. Conclusion These results implicate stimulus-induced oscillatory activity in verbal working memory and β activity in the process of subvocal rehearsal.

The Effect of Alcohol on the Nature of Lexical Representations in Different Taste Domains

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Maria Baskini

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Moderate alcohol consumption may be involved in cognitive feedback mechanisms (Hofmann & Friese, 2008, participants execute verbal fluency test (VFT better (Cerhan et al., 1998 and there is positive association between sweet taste and excessive alcohol intake (Lange, Kampov-Polevoy, & Garbutt, 2010. We investigate the immediate pharmacological consequences of moderate to light alcohol consumption in verbal fluency and categorical sorting within the different taste domains (i.e. sweet, salty, sour and bitter. Our hypothesis is that subjects under the influence of light to moderate alcohol will produce more items in the sweet domain. 53 healthy adults had moderate alcohol consumption and were compared in two semantic tasks to 53 adults, who did not drink alcohol. Mann-Whitney U tests showed that the total number of clusters, switches, and repetitions were equal between the two groups in all taste domains (p-values: .211, .401, and .684 respectively. The number of responses in the alcohol group generated more disinhibiting intrusive words during the VFTs as compared to the control group (p-value: <.001. VFTs and the order of taste preference in the card-sorting task showed positive correlation and agreement. Light to moderate alcohol did not affect verbal fluency. However, participants under the influence of alcohol generated significantly more errors in the VFTs that were emotionally laden. This corroborates with research that certain emotions are innervated with taste domains. This leaves open question about the effects of alcohol on decision making in eating and executive functions as they relate to lexical representations.

Impact of short-term meditation and expectation on executive brain functions.

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Prätzlich, Martin; Kossowsky, Joe; Gaab, Jens; Krummenacher, Peter

2016-01-15

Meditation improves executive functions such as attention and working memory processes. However, it remains unclear to what extent contextual effects contribute to these improvements, since the role of meditation-associated expectations has not been investigated so far. In a randomized, single-blind, deceptive, between-subject design we compared the impact of short-term meditation (MG) on executive functioning with an expectation (ECG) and a passive control group (CG) as well as the effect of positive and negative outcome expectations. Fifty-nine healthy meditation-naïve volunteers participated on three consecutive days (20 min/session). Five groups were examined: 2 MGs, 2 ECGs and 1 CG. While one MG and one ECG were given positive suggestions concerning the effect of meditation on attention, the other two groups were given negative suggestions. MGs practised a focused attention meditation technique; ECGs were told that they were practising meditation but were given instructions for a sham meditation. CG participants sat in silence with their eyes closed. Interference control (Stroop task), selective sustained attention (d2 task), figural and verbal fluency measures of executive functions were assessed. Results indicate that suggestions have a substantial impact on interference control and verbal fluency, with positive suggestions leading to an increase in performance, whereas negative suggestions impeded improvement. This proof of concept study demonstrates the importance of the implementation of a credible ECG to elucidate context effects in meditation processes. It also indicates that suggestions can modulate the small effect of meditation on verbal fluency. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The neural substrates associated with attentional resources and difficulty of concurrent processing of the two verbal tasks.

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Mizuno, Kei; Tanaka, Masaaki; Tanabe, Hiroki C; Sadato, Norihiro; Watanabe, Yasuyoshi

2012-07-01

The kana pick-out test has been widely used in Japan to evaluate the ability to divide attention in both adult and pediatric patients. However, the neural substrates underlying the ability to divide attention using the kana pick-out test, which requires participants to pick out individual letters (vowels) in a story while also reading for comprehension, thus requiring simultaneous allocation of attention to both activities, are still unclear. Moreover, outside of the clinical area, neuroimaging studies focused on the mechanisms of divided attention during complex story comprehension are rare. Thus, the purpose of the present study, to clarify the neural substrates of kana pick-out test, improves our current understanding of the basic neural mechanisms of dual task performance in verbal memory function. We compared patterns of activation in the brain obtained during performance of the individual tasks of vowel identification and story comprehension, to levels of activation when participants performed the two tasks simultaneously during the kana pick-out test. We found that activations of the left dorsal inferior frontal gyrus and superior parietal lobule increase in functional connectivity to a greater extent during the dual task condition compared to the two single task conditions. In contrast, activations of the left fusiform gyrus and middle temporal gyrus, which are significantly involved in picking out letters and complex sentences during story comprehension, respectively, were reduced in the dual task condition compared to during the two single task conditions. These results suggest that increased activations of the dorsal inferior frontal gyrus and superior parietal lobule during dual task performance may be associated with the capacity for attentional resources, and reduced activations of the left fusiform gyrus and middle temporal gyrus may reflect the difficulty of concurrent processing of the two tasks. In addition, the increase in synchronization between

Treating verbal working memory in a boy with intellectual disability

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Margherita eOrsolini

2015-07-01

Full Text Available The present case study investigates the effects of a cognitive training of verbal working memory that was proposed for Davide, a fourteen-year-old boy diagnosed with mild intellectual disability. The program stimulated attention, inhibition, switching, and the ability to engage either in verbal dual tasks or in producing inferences after the content of a short passage had been encoded in episodic memory. Key elements in our program included (1 core training of target cognitive mechanisms; (2 guided practice emphasizing concrete strategies to engage in exercises; and (3 a variable amount of adult support. The study explored whether such a complex program produced near transfer effects on an untrained dual task assessing verbal working memory and whether effects on this and other target cognitive mechanisms (i.e., attention, inhibition and switching were long-lasting and produced far transfer effects on cognitive flexibility. The effects of the intervention program were investigated with a research design consisting of four subsequent phases lasting eight or ten weeks, each preceded and followed by testing. There was a control condition (phase 1 in which the boy received, at home, a stimulation focused on the visuospatial domain. Subsequently, there were three experimental training phases, in which stimulation in the verbal domain was first focused on attention and inhibition (phase 2a, then on switching and simple working memory tasks (phase 2b, then on complex working memory tasks (phase 3. A battery of neuropsychological tests was administered before and after each training phase and seven months after the conclusion of the intervention. The main finding was that Davide changed from being incapable of addressing the dual task request of the listening span test in the initial assessment to performing close to the normal limits of a thirteen-year-old boy in the follow-up assessment with this test, when he was fifteen years old.

Reading Fluency in the Middle and Secondary Grades

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David D. PAIGE

2014-10-01

Full Text Available In this article we discuss the specifics of reading fluency and provide suggestions for identifying when reading is fluent and when it is not. We then discuss the important role that reading fluency plays in the attainment of literacy achievement and briefly review research results that highlight the relationship between fluency and comprehension. This is followed by a discussion of reading fluency and comprehension data gathered by one of the authors in India that highlight the possibilities for the acquisition of fluent reading in those learning English as a second language. Following a review of strategies to assist middle and secondary teachers with the development of fluent reading in their students, we conclude with a discussion of word study strategies that promote syllabic and morphemic analysis. Such strategies aid readers in the development of word automaticity and encourage the development of fluent reading.

The brain correlates of the effects of monetary and verbal rewards on intrinsic motivation.

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Albrecht, Konstanze; Abeler, Johannes; Weber, Bernd; Falk, Armin

2014-01-01

Apart from everyday duties, such as doing the laundry or cleaning the house, there are tasks we do for pleasure and enjoyment. We do such tasks, like solving crossword puzzles or reading novels, without any external pressure or force; instead, we are intrinsically motivated: we do the tasks because we enjoy doing them. Previous studies suggest that external rewards, i.e., rewards from the outside, affect the intrinsic motivation to engage in a task: while performance-based monetary rewards are perceived as controlling and induce a business-contract framing, verbal rewards praising one's competence can enhance the perceived self-determination. Accordingly, the former have been shown to decrease intrinsic motivation, whereas the latter have been shown to increase intrinsic motivation. The present study investigated the neural processes underlying the effects of monetary and verbal rewards on intrinsic motivation in a group of 64 subjects applying functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We found that, when participants received positive performance feedback, activation in the anterior striatum and midbrain was affected by the nature of the reward; compared to a non-rewarded control group, activation was higher while monetary rewards were administered. However, we did not find a decrease in activation after reward withdrawal. In contrast, we found an increase in activation for verbal rewards: after verbal rewards had been withdrawn, participants showed a higher activation in the aforementioned brain areas when they received success compared to failure feedback. We further found that, while participants worked on the task, activation in the lateral prefrontal cortex was enhanced after the verbal rewards were administered and withdrawn.

Human strategies for solving a time-place learning task: the role of counting and following verbal cues.

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García-Gallardo, Daniel; Aguilar, Francisco; Armenta, Benjamín; Carpio, Claudio

2015-04-01

Two experiments were conducted to assess the emergence of time-place learning in humans. In experiment 1, a computer based software was designed in which participants had to choose to enter one of four rooms in an abandoned house search for a zombie every 3-15s. Zombies could be found in only one of these rooms every trial in 3 min periods during the 12 min sessions. After 4 training sessions, participants were exposed to a probe session in which zombies could be found in any room on every trial. Almost all participants behaved as if they were timing the availability intervals: they anticipated the changes in the location of the zombie and they persisted in their performance patterns during the probe session; however, verbal reports revealed that they were counting the number of trials in each period in order to decide when to switch between rooms. In the second experiment, the task was modified in two ways: counting was made harder by using three different intertrial ranges within each session: 2-6s, 2-11s and 2-16s. Second, labels were displaced during the final session to assess whether participants learned to click on a given place or to follow a set of verbal cues. We found that participants did not notice the label changes suggesting that they learned to click on a given place, and that a win/stay-lose/shift strategy was clearly used to decide when to switch rooms in the second experiment. The implications of verbal behavior when assessing time-place learning with humans and the possible differences in this process between humans and animals are discussed. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Conceptual fluency at test shifts recognition response bias in Alzheimer's disease: implications for increased false recognition.

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Gold, Carl A; Marchant, Natalie L; Koutstaal, Wilma; Schacter, Daniel L; Budson, Andrew E

2007-09-20

The presence or absence of conceptual information in pictorial stimuli may explain the mixed findings of previous studies of false recognition in patients with mild Alzheimer's disease (AD). To test this hypothesis, 48 patients with AD were compared to 48 healthy older adults on a recognition task first described by Koutstaal et al. [Koutstaal, W., Reddy, C., Jackson, E. M., Prince, S., Cendan, D. L., & Schacter D. L. (2003). False recognition of abstract versus common objects in older and younger adults: Testing the semantic categorization account. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 29, 499-510]. Participants studied and were tested on their memory for categorized ambiguous pictures of common objects. The presence of conceptual information at study and/or test was manipulated by providing or withholding disambiguating semantic labels. Analyses focused on testing two competing theories. The semantic encoding hypothesis, which posits that the inter-item perceptual details are not encoded by AD patients when conceptual information is present in the stimuli, was not supported by the findings. In contrast, the conceptual fluency hypothesis was supported. Enhanced conceptual fluency at test dramatically shifted AD patients to a more liberal response bias, raising their false recognition. These results suggest that patients with AD rely on the fluency of test items in making recognition memory decisions. We speculate that AD patients' over reliance upon fluency may be attributable to (1) dysfunction of the hippocampus, disrupting recollection, and/or (2) dysfunction of prefrontal cortex, disrupting post-retrieval processes.

Verbal play as a discourse resource in the social interactions of older and younger communication pairs.

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Shune, Samantha; Duff, Melissa Collins

2014-01-01

Verbal play, or the playful manipulation of elements of language, is a pervasive component of social interaction, serving important interpersonal functions. We analyzed verbal play in the interactional discourse of ten healthy younger pairs and ten healthy older pairs as they completed a collaborative referencing task. A total of 1,893 verbal play episodes were coded. While there were no group differences in verbal play frequency, age-related differences in the quality and function of these episodes emerged. While older participants engaged in more complex, extended, and reciprocal episodes that supported the social nature of communicative interactions (e.g., teasing), younger participants were more likely to engage in verbal play episodes for the purpose of successful task completion. Despite these age-related variations in the deployment of verbal play, verbal play is a robust interactional discourse resource in healthy aging, highlighting an element of human cognition that does not appear to decline with age.

Oral reading fluency analysis in patients with Alzheimer disease and asymptomatic control subjects.

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Martínez-Sánchez, F; Meilán, J J G; García-Sevilla, J; Carro, J; Arana, J M

2013-01-01

Many studies highlight that an impaired ability to communicate is one of the key clinical features of Alzheimer disease (AD). To study temporal organisation of speech in an oral reading task in patients with AD and in matched healthy controls using a semi-automatic method, and evaluate that method's ability to discriminate between the 2 groups. A test with an oral reading task was administered to 70 subjects, comprising 35 AD patients and 35 controls. Before speech samples were recorded, participants completed a battery of neuropsychological tests. There were no differences between groups with regard to age, sex, or educational level. All of the study variables showed impairment in the AD group. According to the results, AD patients' oral reading was marked by reduced speech and articulation rates, low effectiveness of phonation time, and increases in the number and proportion of pauses. Signal processing algorithms applied to reading fluency recordings were shown to be capable of differentiating between AD patients and controls with an accuracy of 80% (specificity 74.2%, sensitivity 77.1%) based on speech rate. Analysis of oral reading fluency may be useful as a tool for the objective study and quantification of speech deficits in AD. Copyright © 2012 Sociedad Española de Neurología. Published by Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.

The Effect of Prior Task Success on Older Adults' Memory Performance: Examining the Influence of Different Types of Task Success.

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Geraci, Lisa; Hughes, Matthew L; Miller, Tyler M; De Forrest, Ross L

2016-01-01

Negative aging stereotypes can lead older adults to perform poorly on memory tests. Yet, memory performance can be improved if older adults have a single successful experience on a cognitive test prior to participating in a memory experiment (Geraci & Miller, 2013, Psychology and Aging, 28, 340-345). The current study examined the effects of different types of prior task experience on subsequent memory performance. Before participating in a verbal free recall experiment, older adults in Experiment 1 successfully completed either a verbal or a visual cognitive task or no task. In Experiment 2, they successfully completed either a motor task or no task before participating in the free recall experiment. Results from Experiment 1 showed that relative to control (no prior task), participants who had prior success, either on a verbal or a visual task, had better subsequent recall performance. Experiment 2 showed that prior success on a motor task, however, did not lead to a later memory advantage relative to control. These findings demonstrate that older adults' memory can be improved by a successful prior task experience so long as that experience is in a cognitive domain.

Verbal memory retrieval engages visual cortex in musicians.

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Huang, Z; Zhang, J X; Yang, Z; Dong, G; Wu, J; Chan, A S; Weng, X

2010-06-16

As one major line of research on brain plasticity, many imaging studies have been conducted to identify the functional and structural reorganization associated with musical expertise. Based on previous behavioral research, the present study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify the neural correlates of superior verbal memory performance in musicians. Participants with and without musical training performed a verbal memory task to first encode a list of words auditorily delivered and then silently recall as many words as possible. They performed in separate blocks a control task involving pure tone pitch judgment. Post-scan recognition test showed better memory performance in musicians than non-musicians. During memory retrieval, the musicians showed significantly greater activations in bilateral though left-lateralized visual cortex relative to the pitch judgment baseline. In comparison, no such visual cortical activations were found in the non-musicians. No group differences were observed during the encoding stage. The results echo a previous report of visual cortical activation during verbal memory retrieval in the absence of any visual sensory stimulation in the blind population, who are also known to possess superior verbal memory. It is suggested that the visual cortex can be recruited to serve as extra memory resources and contributes to the superior verbal memory in special situations. While in the blind population, such cross-modal functional reorganization may be induced by sensory deprivation; in the musicians it may be induced by the long-term and demanding nature of musical training to use as much available neural resources as possible. 2010 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Functional regional cerebral blood flow SPECT using 99mTc-HM-PAO by speech memory tasks

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Tohyama, Junko

1993-01-01

Using single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) with Tc-99m HA-PAO, changes in regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) by giving word memory and Miyake's tasks were determined for localizatin of speech memory function. Twice injection method of Tc-99m HM-PAO was used to obtain subtraction SPECT images; and positioning of the 1st and 2nd SPECT was determined by phantom study. To prevent artifacts and changes in rCBF as far as possible, the subjects were informed word fluency and Miyake's tasks sufficiently. When giving word fluency approach, an increase in rCBF was observed in both the operculum and the supratemporal convolution of dominant hemisphere. When giving Miyake's approach, it was observed predominantly in the supratemporal convolution of dominant hemisphere. Although it was also observed in the base of frontal lobe and operculum, there was no bilateral difference. An increased rCBF in the basal nucleus was more clearly observed by Miyake's than word fluency tasks without bilateral differences. There was no definitive increase in rCBF in the Papez's circuit responsible for memory and emotion by either word fluency or Miyake's tasks. In mentally mild disorder patients, an increased rCBF was observed in the same areas as those in normal subjects. In such patients having a decreased rCBF at rest, an increased rCBF was seen in the contralateral hemisphere and the surrounding areas of the lesions, suggesting compensatory mechanism. (N.K.) 65 refs

When Do Words Hurt? A Multiprocess View of the Effects of Verbalization on Visual Memory

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Brown, Charity; Brandimonte, Maria A.; Wickham, Lee H. V.; Bosco, Andrea; Schooler, Jonathan W.

2014-01-01

Verbal overshadowing reflects the impairment in memory performance following verbalization of nonverbal stimuli. However, it is not clear whether the same mechanisms are responsible for verbal overshadowing effects observed with different stimuli and task demands. In the present article, we propose a multiprocess view that reconciles the main…

Concurrent performance of two memory tasks: evidence for domain-specific working memory systems.

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Cocchini, Gianna; Logie, Robert H; Della Sala, Sergio; MacPherson, Sarah E; Baddeley, Alan D

2002-10-01

Previous studies of dual-task coordination in working memory have shown a lack of dual-task interference when a verbal memory task is combined with concurrent perceptuomotor tracking. Two experiments are reported in which participants were required to perform pairwise combinations of (1) a verbal memory task, a visual memory task, and perceptuomotor tracking (Experiment 1), and (2) pairwise combinations of the two memory tasks and articulatory suppression (Experiment 2). Tracking resulted in no disruption of the verbal memory preload over and above the impact of a delay in recall and showed only minimal disruption of the retention of the visual memory load. Performing an ongoing verbal memory task had virtually no impact on retention of a visual memory preload or vice versa, indicating that performing two demanding memory tasks results in little mutual interference. Experiment 2 also showed minimal disruption when the two memory tasks were combined, although verbal memory (but not visual memory) was clearly disrupted by articulatory suppression interpolated between presentation and recall. These data suggest that a multiple-component working memory model provides a better account for performance in concurrent immediate memory tasks than do theories that assume a single processing and storage system or a limited-capacity attentional system coupled with activated memory traces.

Cognitive performance and electrophysiological indices of cognitive control: a validation study of conflict adaptation.

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Clayson, Peter E; Larson, Michael J

2012-05-01

Psychiatric and neurologic disorders are associated with deficits in the postconflict recruitment of cognitive control. The primary aim of this study was to validate the relationship between cognitive functioning and indices of conflict adaptation. Event-related potentials were obtained from 89 healthy individuals who completed an Eriksen flanker task. Neuropsychological domains tested included memory, verbal fluency, and attention/executive functioning. Behavioral measures and N2 amplitudes showed significant conflict adaptation (i.e., previous-trial congruencies influenced current-trial measures). Higher scores on the attention/executive functioning and verbal fluency domains were associated with larger incongruent-trial N2 conflict adaptation; measures of cognitive functioning were not related to behavioral indices. This study provides initial validation of N2 conflict adaptation effects as cognitive function-related aspects of cognitive control. Copyright © 2012 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

Associations between physical function, dual-task performance and cognition in patients with mild Alzheimer's disease.

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Sobol, Nanna Aue; Hoffmann, Kristine; Vogel, Asmus; Lolk, Annette; Gottrup, Hanne; Høgh, Peter; Hasselbalch, Steen G; Beyer, Nina

2016-11-01

Alzheimer's disease (AD) causes a gradual decline in cognition, limitations of dual-tasking and physical function leading to total dependence. Hence, information about the interaction between physical function, dual-task performance and cognition may lead to new treatment strategies with the purpose of preserving function and quality of life. The objective of this study was to investigate the associations between physical function, dual-task performance and cognition in community-dwelling patients with mild AD. Baseline results from 185 participants (50-90 years old) in the single blinded multicenter RCT 'ADEX' (Alzheimer's disease: the effect of physical exercise) were used. Assessments included tests of physical function: 400-m walk test, 10-m walk test, Timed Up and Go test and 30-s chair stand test; dual-task performance, i.e., 10-m walk while counting backwards from 50 or naming the months backwards; and cognition, i.e., Mini Mental State Examination, Symbol Digit Modalities Test, the Stroop Color and Word Test, and Lexical verbal fluency test. Results in the 30-s chair stand test correlated significantly with all tests of cognition (r = .208-.242) while the other physical function tests only randomly correlated with tests of cognition. Results in the dual-task counting backwards correlated significantly with results in all tests of cognition (r = .259-.388), which accounted for 7%-15% of the variation indicating that a faster time to complete dual-task performance was associated with better cognitive performance. The evidence of the associations between physical function, dual-task performance and cognition is important when creating new rehabilitation interventions to patients with mild AD.

Facilitating English-Language Learners' Oral Reading Fluency with Digital Pen Technology

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Chen, Chih-Ming; Tan, Chia-Chen; Lo, Bey-Jane

2016-01-01

Oral reading fluency is an indicator of overall reading competence. Many studies have claimed that repeated reading can promote oral reading fluency. Currently, novel Web- or computer-based reading technologies offer interactive digital materials that promote English oral reading fluency using the repeated reading strategy; however, paper-based…

Auditory hindsight bias: Fluency misattribution versus memory reconstruction.

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Higham, Philip A; Neil, Greg J; Bernstein, Daniel M

2017-06-01

We report 4 experiments investigating auditory hindsight bias-the tendency to overestimate the intelligibility of distorted auditory stimuli after learning their identity. An associative priming manipulation was used to vary the amount of processing fluency independently of prior target knowledge. For hypothetical designs, in which hindsight judgments are made for peers in foresight, we predicted that judgments would be based on processing fluency and that hindsight bias would be greater in the unrelated- compared to related-prime context (differential-fluency hypothesis). Conversely, for memory designs, in which foresight judgments are remembered in hindsight, we predicted that judgments would be based on memory reconstruction and that there would be independent effects of prime relatedness and prior target knowledge (recollection hypothesis). These predictions were confirmed. Specifically, we found support for the differential-fluency hypothesis when a hypothetical design was used in Experiments 1 and 2 (hypothetical group). Conversely, when a memory design was used in Experiments 2 (memory group), 3A, and 3B, we found support for the recollection hypothesis. Together, the results suggest that qualitatively different mechanisms create hindsight bias in the 2 designs. The results are discussed in terms of fluency misattributions, memory reconstruction, anchoring-and-adjustment, sense making, and a multicomponent model of hindsight bias. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Trauma team leaders' non-verbal communication: video registration during trauma team training.

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Härgestam, Maria; Hultin, Magnus; Brulin, Christine; Jacobsson, Maritha

2016-03-25

There is widespread consensus on the importance of safe and secure communication in healthcare, especially in trauma care where time is a limiting factor. Although non-verbal communication has an impact on communication between individuals, there is only limited knowledge of how trauma team leaders communicate. The purpose of this study was to investigate how trauma team members are positioned in the emergency room, and how leaders communicate in terms of gaze direction, vocal nuances, and gestures during trauma team training. Eighteen trauma teams were audio and video recorded during trauma team training in the emergency department of a hospital in northern Sweden. Quantitative content analysis was used to categorize the team members' positions and the leaders' non-verbal communication: gaze direction, vocal nuances, and gestures. The quantitative data were interpreted in relation to the specific context. Time sequences of the leaders' gaze direction, speech time, and gestures were identified separately and registered as time (seconds) and proportions (%) of the total training time. The team leaders who gained control over the most important area in the emergency room, the "inner circle", positioned themselves as heads over the team, using gaze direction, gestures, vocal nuances, and verbal commands that solidified their verbal message. Changes in position required both attention and collaboration. Leaders who spoke in a hesitant voice, or were silent, expressed ambiguity in their non-verbal communication: and other team members took over the leader's tasks. In teams where the leader had control over the inner circle, the members seemed to have an awareness of each other's roles and tasks, knowing when in time and where in space these tasks needed to be executed. Deviations in the leaders' communication increased the ambiguity in the communication, which had consequences for the teamwork. Communication cannot be taken for granted; it needs to be practiced

Errors on interrupter tasks presented during spatial and verbal working memory performance are linearly linked to large-scale functional network connectivity in high temporal resolution resting state fMRI.

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Magnuson, Matthew Evan; Thompson, Garth John; Schwarb, Hillary; Pan, Wen-Ju; McKinley, Andy; Schumacher, Eric H; Keilholz, Shella Dawn

2015-12-01

The brain is organized into networks composed of spatially separated anatomical regions exhibiting coherent functional activity over time. Two of these networks (the default mode network, DMN, and the task positive network, TPN) have been implicated in the performance of a number of cognitive tasks. To directly examine the stable relationship between network connectivity and behavioral performance, high temporal resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were collected during the resting state, and behavioral data were collected from 15 subjects on different days, exploring verbal working memory, spatial working memory, and fluid intelligence. Sustained attention performance was also evaluated in a task interleaved between resting state scans. Functional connectivity within and between the DMN and TPN was related to performance on these tasks. Decreased TPN resting state connectivity was found to significantly correlate with fewer errors on an interrupter task presented during a spatial working memory paradigm and decreased DMN/TPN anti-correlation was significantly correlated with fewer errors on an interrupter task presented during a verbal working memory paradigm. A trend for increased DMN resting state connectivity to correlate to measures of fluid intelligence was also observed. These results provide additional evidence of the relationship between resting state networks and behavioral performance, and show that such results can be observed with high temporal resolution fMRI. Because cognitive scores and functional connectivity were collected on nonconsecutive days, these results highlight the stability of functional connectivity/cognitive performance coupling.

THE BRAIN CORRELATES OF THE EFFECTS OF MONETARY AND VERBAL REWARDS ON INTRINSIC MOTIVATION

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Konstanze eAlbrecht

2014-09-01

Full Text Available Apart from everyday duties, such as doing the laundry or cleaning the house, there are tasks we do for pleasure and enjoyment. We do such tasks, like solving crossword puzzles or reading novels, without any external pressure or force; instead, we are intrinsically motivated: We do the tasks because we enjoy doing them. Previous studies suggest that external rewards, i.e., rewards from the outside, affect the intrinsic motivation to engage in a task: While performance-based monetary rewards are perceived as controlling and induce a business-contract framing, verbal rewards praising one’s competence can enhance the perceived self-determination. Accordingly, the former have been shown to decrease intrinsic motivation, whereas the latter have been shown to increase intrinsic motivation. The present study investigated the neural processes underlying the effects of monetary and verbal rewards on intrinsic motivation in a group of 64 subjects applying functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI. We found that, when participants received positive performance feedback, activation in the anterior striatum and midbrain was affected by the nature of the reward; compared to a non-rewarded control group, activation was higher while monetary rewards were administered. However, we did not find a decrease in activation after reward withdrawal. In contrast, we found an increase in activation for verbal rewards: After verbal rewards had been withdrawn, participants showed a higher activation in the aforementioned brain areas when they received success compared to failure feedback. We further found that, while participants worked on the task, activation in the lateral prefrontal cortex was enhanced after the verbal rewards were administered and withdrawn.

The task-relevant attribute representation can mediate the Simon effect.

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Dandan Tang

Full Text Available Researchers have previously suggested a working memory (WM account of spatial codes, and based on this suggestion, the present study carries out three experiments to investigate how the task-relevant attribute representation (verbal or visual in the typical Simon task affects the Simon effect. Experiment 1 compared the Simon effect between the between- and within-category color conditions, which required subjects to discriminate between red and blue stimuli (presumed to be represented by verbal WM codes because it was easy and fast to name the colors verbally and to discriminate between two similar green stimuli (presumed to be represented by visual WM codes because it was hard and time-consuming to name the colors verbally, respectively. The results revealed a reliable Simon effect that only occurs in the between-category condition. Experiment 2 assessed the Simon effect by requiring subjects to discriminate between two different isosceles trapezoids (within-category shapes and to discriminate isosceles trapezoid from rectangle (between-category shapes, and the results replicated and expanded the findings of Experiment 1. In Experiment 3, subjects were required to perform both tasks from Experiment 1. Wherein, in Experiment 3A, the between-category task preceded the within-category task; in Experiment 3B, the task order was opposite. The results showed the reliable Simon effect when subjects represented the task-relevant stimulus attributes by verbal WM encoding. In addition, the response times (RTs distribution analysis for both the between- and within-category conditions of Experiments 3A and 3B showed decreased Simon effect with the RTs lengthened. Altogether, although the present results are consistent with the temporal coding account, we put forth that the Simon effect also depends on the verbal WM representation of task-relevant stimulus attribute.

What makes icons appealing? The role of processing fluency in predicting icon appeal in different task contexts.

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McDougall, S.; Reppa, I.; Kulik, J.; Taylor, A.

2016-01-01

Although icons appear on almost all interfaces, there is a paucity of research examining the determinants of icon appeal. The experiments reported here examined the icon characteristics determining appeal and the extent to which processing fluency - the subjective ease with which individuals process information - was used as a heuristic to guide appeal evaluations. Participants searched for, and identified, icons in displays. The initial appeal of icons was held constant while ease of process...

Verbal and musical short-term memory: Variety of auditory disorders after stroke.

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Hirel, Catherine; Nighoghossian, Norbert; Lévêque, Yohana; Hannoun, Salem; Fornoni, Lesly; Daligault, Sébastien; Bouchet, Patrick; Jung, Julien; Tillmann, Barbara; Caclin, Anne

2017-04-01

Auditory cognitive deficits after stroke may concern language and/or music processing, resulting in aphasia and/or amusia. The aim of the present study was to assess the potential deficits of auditory short-term memory for verbal and musical material after stroke and their underlying cerebral correlates with a Voxel-based Lesion Symptom Mapping approach (VLSM). Patients with an ischemic stroke in the right (N=10) or left (N=10) middle cerebral artery territory and matched control participants (N=14) were tested with a detailed neuropsychological assessment including global cognitive functions, music perception and language tasks. All participants then performed verbal and musical auditory short-term memory (STM) tasks that were implemented in the same way for both materials. Participants had to indicate whether series of four words or four tones presented in pairs, were the same or different. To detect domain-general STM deficits, they also had to perform a visual STM task. Behavioral results showed that patients had lower performance for the STM tasks in comparison with control participants, regardless of the material (words, tones, visual) and the lesion side. The individual patient data showed a double dissociation between some patients exhibiting verbal deficits without musical deficits or the reverse. Exploratory VLSM analyses suggested that dorsal pathways are involved in verbal (phonetic), musical (melodic), and visual STM, while the ventral auditory pathway is involved in musical STM. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Development of Rehearsal in Verbal Short-Term Memory

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Jarrold, Christopher; Hall, Debbora

2013-01-01

Verbal short-term memory, as indexed by immediate serial recall tasks (in which participants must recall several stimuli in order, immediately after presentation), develops considerably across middle childhood. One explanation for this age-related change is that children's ability to rehearse verbal material increases during this period, and one particularly influential version of this account is that only older children engage in any form of rehearsal. In this article, we critique evidence t...

Suppression effects on musical and verbal memory.

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Schendel, Zachary A; Palmer, Caroline

2007-06-01

Three experiments contrasted the effects of articulatory suppression on recognition memory for musical and verbal sequences. In Experiment 1, a standard/comparison task was employed, with digit or note sequences presented visually or auditorily while participants remained silent or produced intermittent verbal suppression (saying "the") or musical suppression (singing "la"). Both suppression types decreased performance by equivalent amounts, as compared with no suppression. Recognition accuracy was lower during suppression for visually presented digits than during that for auditorily presented digits (consistent with phonological loop predictions), whereas accuracy was equivalent for visually presented notes and auditory tones. When visual interference filled the retention interval in Experiment 2, performance with visually presented notes but not digits was impaired. Experiment 3 forced participants to translate visually presented music sequences by presenting comparison sequences auditorily. Suppression effects for visually presented music resembled those for digits only when the recognition task required sensory translation of cues.

Update on Didactic and Clinical Education in Fluency Disorders: 2013-2014.

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Scott Yaruss, J; Lee, Jieun; Kikani, Kaya B; Leslie, Paula; Herring, Caryn; Ramachandar, Sujini; Tichenor, Seth; Quesal, Robert W; McNeil, Malcolm R

2017-02-01

This study surveyed didactic and clinical education in fluency disorders at undergraduate and graduate institutions in the United States that provide education in speech-language pathology to determine whether a previously observed reduction in requirements has continued since prior surveys (Yaruss, 1999; Yaruss & Quesal, 2002). The study involved a detailed questionnaire that was sent to 282 communication science and disorders departments. Questions examined didactic and clinical education, as well as faculty knowledge about fluency disorders. Comparisons with prior surveys revealed several findings, including (a) on average, programs have increased academic coursework and incorporated more practical sessions and competency-based testing in the classroom; (b) the number of faculty who possess extensive clinical experience with fluency disorders has decreased; and (c) although an increase in clinical requirements in fluency disorders was detected, the number of programs providing minimal education about fluency disorders remains high. Given an expanding scope of practice, many programs have continued to try to provide adequate education about fluency disorders. Still, direct clinical experiences are limited, and faculty expertise in this area has continued to decrease. To raise students' confidence and competence in fluency disorders, efforts beyond graduate work-or systemic changes in the profession-may be necessary.

The perceptual cognitive processes underpinning skilled performance in volleyball: evidence from eye-movements and verbal reports of thinking involving an in situ representative task.

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Afonso, José; Garganta, Jêlio; McRobert, Allistair; Williams, Andrew M; Mesquita, Isabel

2012-01-01

An extensive body of work has focused on the processes underpinning perceptual-cognitive expertise. The majority of researchers have used film-based simulations to capture superior performance. We combined eye movement recording and verbal reports of thinking to explore the processes underpinning skilled performance in a complex, dynamic, and externally paced representative volleyball task involving in situ data collection. Altogether, 27 female volleyball players performed as centre backcourt defenders in simulated sessions while wearing an eye-tracking device. After each sequence, athletes were questioned concerning their perception of the situation. The visual search strategies employed by the highly-skilled players were more exploratory than those used by skilled players, involving more fixations to a greater number of locations. Highly-skilled participants spent more time fixating on functional spaces between two or more display areas, while the skilled participants fixated on the ball trajectory and specific players. Moreover, highly-skilled players generated more condition concepts with higher levels of sophistication than their skilled counterparts. Findings highlight the value of using representative task designs to capture performance in situ. Key pointsDecision-making in complex sports relies deeply on perceptual-cognitive expertise. In turn, the effect of expertise is highly dependent on the nature and complexity of the task.Nonetheless, most researchers use simple tasks in their research designs, risking not capturing performance in a meaningful way. We proposed to use a live action setting with a complex task design, representative of real world situations.We combined eye movement registration with collection of immediate retrospective verbal reports. Although the two data sets are not directly comparable, they may be used in a complementary manner, providing a deeper and fuller understanding of the processes underpinning superior performance

Aphasic and amnesic patients' verbal vs. nonverbal retentive abilities.

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Cermak, L S; Tarlow, S

1978-03-01

Four different groups of patients (aphasics, alcoholic Korsakoffs, chronic alcoholics, and control patients) were asked to detect either repeated words presented orally, repeated words presented visually, repeated pictures or repeated shapes, during the presentation of a list of similarly constructed stimuli. It was discovered that on the verbal tasks, the number of words intervening between repetitions had more effect on the aphasics than on the other groups of patients. However, for the nonverbal picture repetition and shape repetition tasks, the aphasics' performance was normal, while the alcoholic Korsakoff patients were most affected by the number of intervening items. It was concluded that the aphasics' memory deficit demonstrated by the use of this paradigm was specific to the presentation of verbal material.

Is verbal reference impaired in autism spectrum disorder? A systematic review

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Louise Malkin

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Background and aims Pragmatic language is a key difficulty in autism spectrum disorder. One such pragmatic skill is verbal reference, which allows the current entity of shared interest between speakers to be identified and thus enables fluid conversation. The aim of this review was to determine the extent to which studies have found that verbal reference is impaired in autism spectrum disorder. We organise the review in terms of the methodology used and the modality (production versus comprehension in which proficiency with verbal reference was assessed. Evidence for the potential cognitive underpinnings of these skills is also reviewed. Main contribution and methods To our knowledge, this is the first systematic review of verbal reference in autism spectrum disorder. PsychINFO and Web of Science were systematically screened using the combination of search terms outlined in this paper. Twenty-four studies met our inclusion criteria. Twenty-two of these examined production, whereby the methodology ranged from elicited conversation through to elicited narrative, the ‘director’ task and other referential communication paradigms. Three studies examined reference interpretation. (One study investigated both production and appropriacy judgement. Four studies examined the relationship between appropriate usage of verbal reference and formal language (lexico-syntactic ability. Two studies investigated whether reference production related to Theory of Mind or Executive Functioning. Conclusion and implications Across a range of elicited production tasks, the predominant finding was that children and adults with autism spectrum disorder demonstrate a deficit in the production of appropriate verbal reference in comparison not only to typically developing groups, but also to groups with Developmental Language Disorder or Down syndrome. In contrast, the studies of reference interpretation which compared performance to typical control groups all found no

Exploring "fringe" consciousness: the subjective experience of perceptual fluency and its objective bases.

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

2004-03-01

Perceptual fluency is the subjective experience of ease with which an incoming stimulus is processed. Although perceptual fluency is assessed by speed of processing, it remains unclear how objective speed is related to subjective experiences of fluency. We present evidence that speed at different stages of the perceptual process contributes to perceptual fluency. In an experiment, figure-ground contrast influenced detection of briefly presented words, but not their identification at longer exposure durations. Conversely, font in which the word was written influenced identification, but not detection. Both contrast and font influenced subjective fluency. These findings suggest that speed of processing at different stages condensed into a unified subjective experience of perceptual fluency.

Is Morphological Awareness a Relevant Predictor of Reading Fluency and Comprehension? New Evidence From Italian Monolingual and Arabic-Italian Bilingual Children

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Mirta Vernice

2018-03-01

Full Text Available In this study, we examined the contribution of morphological awareness to reading competence in a group of Italian L1 and Arabic-Italian early L2 children, i.e., exposed to Italian before 3 years of age. Children from first to fifth grade (age range: 6–11 years old were tested on a range of morphological awareness and lexical tasks. Reading ability was tested through standardized tests of reading fluency and comprehension. Results showed that L1 children outperformed L2 on every measure of morphological awareness, as well as on reading tests. Regression analyses revealed that morphological awareness contributed to a different extent to reading ability across groups. Accuracy in the morphological awareness tasks was a significant predictor of word (and non-word reading fluency in L1 and L2 first and second graders, while only in L1 third to fifth graders, response times and accuracy to a morphological awareness task explained a unique amount of variance in reading comprehension. Our results highlight the critical role of morphological processing in reading efficiency and suggest that a training inspired by morphological awareness may improve reading skills also in bilingual students.

Investigating the Prospective Sense of Agency: Effects of Processing Fluency, Stimulus Ambiguity, and Response Conflict

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Sidarus, Nura; Vuorre, Matti; Metcalfe, Janet; Haggard, Patrick

2017-01-01

How do we know how much control we have over our environment? The sense of agency refers to the feeling that we are in control of our actions, and that, through them, we can control our external environment. Thus, agency clearly involves matching intentions, actions, and outcomes. The present studies investigated the possibility that processes of action selection, i.e., choosing what action to make, contribute to the sense of agency. Since selection of action necessarily precedes execution of action, such effects must be prospective. In contrast, most literature on sense of agency has focussed on the retrospective computation whether an outcome fits the action performed or intended. This hypothesis was tested in an ecologically rich, dynamic task based on a computer game. Across three experiments, we manipulated three different aspects of action selection processing: visual processing fluency, categorization ambiguity, and response conflict. Additionally, we measured the relative contributions of prospective, action selection-based cues, and retrospective, outcome-based cues to the sense of agency. Manipulations of action selection were orthogonally combined with discrepancy of visual feedback of action. Fluency of action selection had a small but reliable effect on the sense of agency. Additionally, as expected, sense of agency was strongly reduced when visual feedback was discrepant with the action performed. The effects of discrepant feedback were larger than the effects of action selection fluency, and sometimes suppressed them. The sense of agency is highly sensitive to disruptions of action-outcome relations. However, when motor control is successful, and action-outcome relations are as predicted, fluency or dysfluency of action selection provides an important prospective cue to the sense of agency. PMID:28450839

Modeling individual differences in text reading fluency: a different pattern of predictors for typically developing and dyslexic readers

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Pierluigi eZoccolotti

2014-11-01

Full Text Available This study was aimed at predicting individual differences in text reading fluency. The basic proposal included two factors, i.e., the ability to decode letter strings (measured by discrete pseudo-word reading and integration of the various sub-components involved in reading (measured by Rapid Automatized Naming, RAN. Subsequently, a third factor was added to the model, i.e., naming of discrete digits. In order to use homogeneous measures, all contributing variables considered the entire processing of the item, including pronunciation time. The model, which was based on commonality analysis, was applied to data from a group of 43 typically developing readers (11- to 13-year-olds and a group of 25 chronologically matched dyslexic children. In typically developing readers, both orthographic decoding and integration of reading sub-components contributed significantly to the overall prediction of text reading fluency. The model prediction was higher (from ca. 37% to 52% of the explained variance when we included the naming of discrete digits variable, which had a suppressive effect on pseudo-word reading. In the dyslexic readers, the variance explained by the two-factor model was high (69% and did not change when the third factor was added. The lack of a suppression effect was likely due to the prominent individual differences in poor orthographic decoding of the dyslexic children. Analyses on data from both groups of children were replicated by using patches of colours as stimuli (both in the RAN task and in the discrete naming task obtaining similar results. We conclude that it is possible to predict much of the variance in text-reading fluency using basic processes, such as orthographic decoding and integration of reading sub-components, even without taking into consideration higher-order linguistic factors such as lexical, semantic and contextual abilities. The approach validity of using proximal vs distal causes to predict reading fluency is

Dissociating verbal and nonverbal audiovisual object processing.

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Hocking, Julia; Price, Cathy J

2009-02-01

This fMRI study investigates how audiovisual integration differs for verbal stimuli that can be matched at a phonological level and nonverbal stimuli that can be matched at a semantic level. Subjects were presented simultaneously with one visual and one auditory stimulus and were instructed to decide whether these stimuli referred to the same object or not. Verbal stimuli were simultaneously presented spoken and written object names, and nonverbal stimuli were photographs of objects simultaneously presented with naturally occurring object sounds. Stimulus differences were controlled by including two further conditions that paired photographs of objects with spoken words and object sounds with written words. Verbal matching, relative to all other conditions, increased activation in a region of the left superior temporal sulcus that has previously been associated with phonological processing. Nonverbal matching, relative to all other conditions, increased activation in a right fusiform region that has previously been associated with structural and conceptual object processing. Thus, we demonstrate how brain activation for audiovisual integration depends on the verbal content of the stimuli, even when stimulus and task processing differences are controlled.

Integrated cross-domain object storage in working memory : Evidence from a verbal-spatial memory task

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Morey, C.C.

2009-01-01

Working-memory theories often include domain-specific verbal and visual stores (e.g., the phonological and visuospatial buffers of Baddeley, 1986), and some also posit more general stores thought to be capable of holding verbal or visuospatial materials (Baddeley, 2000; Cowan, 2005). However, it is

Comparing the benefits of Caffeine, Naps and Placebo on Verbal, Motor and Perceptual Memory

OpenAIRE

Mednick, Sara C.; Cai, Denise J.; Kanady, Jennifer; Drummond, Sean P.A.

2008-01-01

Caffeine, the world’s most common psychoactive substance, is used by approximately 90% of North Americans everyday. Little is known, however, about its benefits for memory. Napping has been shown to increase alertness and promote learning on some memory tasks. We directly compared caffeine (200mg) with napping (60–90 minutes) and placebo on three distinct memory processes: declarative verbal memory, procedural motor skills, and perceptual learning. In the verbal task, recall and recognition f...

Effects of Steady-State Noise on Verbal Working Memory in Young Adults.

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Marrone, Nicole; Alt, Mary; DeDe, Gayle; Olson, Sarah; Shehorn, James

2015-12-01

We set out to examine the impact of perceptual, linguistic, and capacity demands on performance of verbal working-memory tasks. The Ease of Language Understanding model (Rönnberg et al., 2013) provides a framework for testing the dynamics of these interactions within the auditory-cognitive system. Adult native speakers of English (n = 45) participated in verbal working-memory tasks requiring processing and storage of words involving different linguistic demands (closed/open set). Capacity demand ranged from 2 to 7 words per trial. Participants performed the tasks in quiet and in speech-spectrum-shaped noise. Separate groups of participants were tested at different signal-to-noise ratios. Word-recognition measures were obtained to determine effects of noise on intelligibility. Contrary to predictions, steady-state noise did not have an adverse effect on working-memory performance in every situation. Noise negatively influenced performance for the task with high linguistic demand. Of particular importance is the finding that the adverse effects of background noise were not confined to conditions involving declines in recognition. Perceptual, linguistic, and cognitive demands can dynamically affect verbal working-memory performance even in a population of healthy young adults. Results suggest that researchers and clinicians need to carefully analyze task demands to understand the independent and combined auditory-cognitive factors governing performance in everyday listening situations.

Verbal working memory deficits predict levels of auditory hallucination in first-episode psychosis.

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Gisselgård, Jens; Anda, Liss Gøril; Brønnick, Kolbjørn; Langeveld, Johannes; Ten Velden Hegelstad, Wenche; Joa, Inge; Johannessen, Jan Olav; Larsen, Tor Ketil

2014-03-01

Auditory verbal hallucinations are a characteristic symptom in schizophrenia. Recent causal models of auditory verbal hallucinations propose that cognitive mechanisms involving verbal working memory are involved in the genesis of auditory verbal hallucinations. Thus, in the present study, we investigate the hypothesis that verbal working memory is a specific factor behind auditory verbal hallucinations. In the present study, we investigated the association between verbal working memory manipulation (Backward Digit Span and Letter-Number Sequencing) and auditory verbal hallucinations in a population study (N=52) of first episode psychosis. The degree of auditory verbal hallucination as reported in the P3-subscale of the PANSS interview was included as dependent variable using sequential multiple regression, while controlling for age, psychosis symptom severity, executive cognitive functions and simple auditory working memory span. Multiple sequential regression analyses revealed verbal working memory manipulation to be the only significant predictor of verbal hallucination severity. Consistent with cognitive data from auditory verbal hallucinations in healthy individuals, the present results suggest a specific association between auditory verbal hallucinations, and cognitive processes involving the manipulation of phonological representations during a verbal working memory task. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Examining Oral Reading Fluency Trajectories Among English Language Learners and English Speaking Students

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Shane R. Jimerson

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Students’ oral reading fluency growth from first through fourth grade was used to predict their achievement on the Stanford Achievement Test (9th ed.; SAT-9 Reading using a latent growth model. Two conditional variables related to student status were used to determine the effects on reading performance - English language learners (ELLs with low socioeconomic status and low socioeconomic (SES status alone. Results revealed that both types of student status variables reliably predicted low performance on initial first grade oral reading fluency, which later predicted fourth grade performance on the SAT-9. However, the reading fluency trajectories of the ELLs and monolingual English students were not significantly different. In addition, when both student status variables and letter naming fluency were used to predict initial oral reading fluency, letter naming fluency dominated the prediction equation, suggesting that an initial pre-reading skill, letter naming fluency, better explained fourth grade performance on the SAT-9 than either ELL with low SES or low SES alone. The discussion focuses on how to better enable these readers and how oral reading fluency progress monitoring can be used to assist school personnel in determining which students need additional instructional assistance.

Effects of Verbal and Verbal-Motor Responses on Meter Conceptualization in Third-, Fourth-, and Fifth-Grade Children.

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Jones, Russell L.

1992-01-01

Reports on a study of third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade students to identify and conceptualize meter in music. Finds that ability to perform these tasks improves with maturity and with use of hand gestures as well as verbal response. Concludes that it is important to match curriculum with the developmental levels of students. (CFR)

Attention supports verbal short-term memory via competition between dorsal and ventral attention networks.

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Majerus, Steve; Attout, Lucie; D'Argembeau, Arnaud; Degueldre, Christian; Fias, Wim; Maquet, Pierre; Martinez Perez, Trecy; Stawarczyk, David; Salmon, Eric; Van der Linden, Martial; Phillips, Christophe; Balteau, Evelyne

2012-05-01

Interactions between the neural correlates of short-term memory (STM) and attention have been actively studied in the visual STM domain but much less in the verbal STM domain. Here we show that the same attention mechanisms that have been shown to shape the neural networks of visual STM also shape those of verbal STM. Based on previous research in visual STM, we contrasted the involvement of a dorsal attention network centered on the intraparietal sulcus supporting task-related attention and a ventral attention network centered on the temporoparietal junction supporting stimulus-related attention. We observed that, with increasing STM load, the dorsal attention network was activated while the ventral attention network was deactivated, especially during early maintenance. Importantly, activation in the ventral attention network increased in response to task-irrelevant stimuli briefly presented during the maintenance phase of the STM trials but only during low-load STM conditions, which were associated with the lowest levels of activity in the dorsal attention network during encoding and early maintenance. By demonstrating a trade-off between task-related and stimulus-related attention networks during verbal STM, this study highlights the dynamics of attentional processes involved in verbal STM.

Deaf children’s non-verbal working memory is impacted by their language experience

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Chloe eMarshall

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Recent studies suggest that deaf children perform more poorly on working memory tasks compared to hearing children, but do not say whether this poorer performance arises directly from deafness itself or from deaf children’s reduced language exposure. The issue remains unresolved because findings come from (1 tasks that are verbal as opposed to non-verbal, and (2 involve deaf children who use spoken communication and therefore may have experienced impoverished input and delayed language acquisition. This is in contrast to deaf children who have been exposed to a sign language since birth from Deaf parents (and who therefore have native language-learning opportunities. A more direct test of how the type and quality of language exposure impacts working memory is to use measures of non-verbal working memory (NVWM and to compare hearing children with two groups of deaf signing children: those who have had native exposure to a sign language, and those who have experienced delayed acquisition compared to their native-signing peers. In this study we investigated the relationship between NVWM and language in three groups aged 6-11 years: hearing children (n=27, deaf native users of British Sign Language (BSL; n=7, and deaf children non native signers (n=19. We administered a battery of non-verbal reasoning, NVWM, and language tasks. We examined whether the groups differed on NVWM scores, and if language tasks predicted scores on NVWM tasks. For the two NVWM tasks, the non-native signers performed less accurately than the native signer and hearing groups (who did not differ from one another. Multiple regression analysis revealed that the vocabulary measure predicted scores on NVWM tasks. Our results suggest that whatever the language modality – spoken or signed – rich language experience from birth, and the good language skills that result from this early age of aacquisition, play a critical role in the development of NVWM and in performance on NVWM

Investigating language lateralization during phonological and semantic fluency tasks using functional transcranial Doppler sonography

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Gutierrez-Sigut, Eva; Payne, Heather; MacSweeney, Mairéad

2015-01-01

Although there is consensus that the left hemisphere plays a critical role in language processing, some questions remain. Here we examine the influence of overt versus covert speech production on lateralization, the relationship between lateralization and behavioural measures of language performance and the strength of lateralization across the subcomponents of language. The present study used functional transcranial Doppler sonography (fTCD) to investigate lateralization of phonological and semantic fluency during both overt and covert word generation in right-handed adults. The laterality index (LI) was left lateralized in all conditions, and there was no difference in the strength of LI between overt and covert speech. This supports the validity of using overt speech in fTCD studies, another benefit of which is a reliable measure of speech production. PMID:24875468

Domain-Generality of Timing-Based Serial Order Processes in Short-Term Memory: New Insights from Musical and Verbal Domains.

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Simon Gorin

Full Text Available Several models in the verbal domain of short-term memory (STM consider a dissociation between item and order processing. This view is supported by data demonstrating that different types of time-based interference have a greater effect on memory for the order of to-be-remembered items than on memory for the items themselves. The present study investigated the domain-generality of the item versus serial order dissociation by comparing the differential effects of time-based interfering tasks, such as rhythmic interference and articulatory suppression, on item and order processing in verbal and musical STM domains. In Experiment 1, participants had to maintain sequences of verbal or musical information in STM, followed by a probe sequence, this under different conditions of interference (no-interference, rhythmic interference, articulatory suppression. They were required to decide whether all items of the probe list matched those of the memory list (item condition or whether the order of the items in the probe sequence matched the order in the memory list (order condition. In Experiment 2, participants performed a serial order probe recognition task for verbal and musical sequences ensuring sequential maintenance processes, under no-interference or rhythmic interference conditions. For Experiment 1, serial order recognition was not significantly more impacted by interfering tasks than was item recognition, this for both verbal and musical domains. For Experiment 2, we observed selective interference of the rhythmic interference condition on both musical and verbal order STM tasks. Overall, the results suggest a similar and selective sensitivity to time-based interference for serial order STM in verbal and musical domains, but only when the STM tasks ensure sequential maintenance processes.

Domain-Generality of Timing-Based Serial Order Processes in Short-Term Memory: New Insights from Musical and Verbal Domains.

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Gorin, Simon; Kowialiewski, Benjamin; Majerus, Steve

2016-01-01

Several models in the verbal domain of short-term memory (STM) consider a dissociation between item and order processing. This view is supported by data demonstrating that different types of time-based interference have a greater effect on memory for the order of to-be-remembered items than on memory for the items themselves. The present study investigated the domain-generality of the item versus serial order dissociation by comparing the differential effects of time-based interfering tasks, such as rhythmic interference and articulatory suppression, on item and order processing in verbal and musical STM domains. In Experiment 1, participants had to maintain sequences of verbal or musical information in STM, followed by a probe sequence, this under different conditions of interference (no-interference, rhythmic interference, articulatory suppression). They were required to decide whether all items of the probe list matched those of the memory list (item condition) or whether the order of the items in the probe sequence matched the order in the memory list (order condition). In Experiment 2, participants performed a serial order probe recognition task for verbal and musical sequences ensuring sequential maintenance processes, under no-interference or rhythmic interference conditions. For Experiment 1, serial order recognition was not significantly more impacted by interfering tasks than was item recognition, this for both verbal and musical domains. For Experiment 2, we observed selective interference of the rhythmic interference condition on both musical and verbal order STM tasks. Overall, the results suggest a similar and selective sensitivity to time-based interference for serial order STM in verbal and musical domains, but only when the STM tasks ensure sequential maintenance processes.

Symptoms of ADHD in children with high-functioning autism are related to impaired verbal working memory and verbal delayed recall.

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Andersen, Per Normann; Hovik, Kjell Tore; Skogli, Erik Winther; Egeland, Jens; Oie, Merete

2013-01-01

Symptoms similar to those found in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) often occur in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). The objective of the current study was to compare verbal working memory, acquisition and delayed recall in children with High-Functioning Autism (HFA) to children with ADHD and typically developing children (TDC). Thirty-eight children with HFA, 79 with ADHD and 50 TDC (age 8-17) were assessed with a letter/number sequencing task and a verbal list-learning task. To investigate the possible influence of attention problems in children with HFA, we divided the HFA group into children with (HFA+) or without (HFA-) "attention problems" according to the Child Behaviour Checklist 6-18. The children with HFA+ displayed significant impairment compared to TDC on all three neurocognitive measures, while the children with HFA- were significantly impaired compared to TDC only on the working memory and acquisition measures. In addition, the HFA+ group scored significantly below the HFA- group and the ADHD group on the verbal working memory and delayed recall measures. The results support the proposition that children with HFA+, HFA-, and ADHD differ not only on a clinical level but also on a neurocognitive level which may have implications for treatment.

Symptoms of ADHD in children with high-functioning autism are related to impaired verbal working memory and verbal delayed recall.

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Per Normann Andersen

Full Text Available Symptoms similar to those found in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD often occur in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD. The objective of the current study was to compare verbal working memory, acquisition and delayed recall in children with High-Functioning Autism (HFA to children with ADHD and typically developing children (TDC. Thirty-eight children with HFA, 79 with ADHD and 50 TDC (age 8-17 were assessed with a letter/number sequencing task and a verbal list-learning task. To investigate the possible influence of attention problems in children with HFA, we divided the HFA group into children with (HFA+ or without (HFA- "attention problems" according to the Child Behaviour Checklist 6-18. The children with HFA+ displayed significant impairment compared to TDC on all three neurocognitive measures, while the children with HFA- were significantly impaired compared to TDC only on the working memory and acquisition measures. In addition, the HFA+ group scored significantly below the HFA- group and the ADHD group on the verbal working memory and delayed recall measures. The results support the proposition that children with HFA+, HFA-, and ADHD differ not only on a clinical level but also on a neurocognitive level which may have implications for treatment.

Specialty Board on Fluency Disorders

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... or large groups of speech-language pathologists. Speech-language pathologists who are Board Certified Specialists in Fluency may be found on this website by searching name, city(location) or zip code. ...

Verbal short-term memory and vocabulary learning in polyglots.

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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.

Happiness increases verbal and spatial working memory capacity where sadness does not: Emotion, working memory and executive control.

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Storbeck, Justin; Maswood, Raeya

2016-08-01

The effects of emotion on working memory and executive control are often studied in isolation. Positive mood enhances verbal and impairs spatial working memory, whereas negative mood enhances spatial and impairs verbal working memory. Moreover, positive mood enhances executive control, whereas negative mood has little influence. We examined how emotion influences verbal and spatial working memory capacity, which requires executive control to coordinate between holding information in working memory and completing a secondary task. We predicted that positive mood would improve both verbal and spatial working memory capacity because of its influence on executive control. Positive, negative and neutral moods were induced followed by completing a verbal (Experiment 1) or spatial (Experiment 2) working memory operation span task to assess working memory capacity. Positive mood enhanced working memory capacity irrespective of the working memory domain, whereas negative mood had no influence on performance. Thus, positive mood was more successful holding information in working memory while processing task-irrelevant information, suggesting that the influence mood has on executive control supersedes the independent effects mood has on domain-specific working memory.

High-functioning autism patients share similar but more severe impairments in verbal theory of mind than schizophrenia patients.

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Tin, L N W; Lui, S S Y; Ho, K K Y; Hung, K S Y; Wang, Y; Yeung, H K H; Wong, T Y; Lam, S M; Chan, R C K; Cheung, E F C

2018-06-01

Evidence suggests that autism and schizophrenia share similarities in genetic, neuropsychological and behavioural aspects. Although both disorders are associated with theory of mind (ToM) impairments, a few studies have directly compared ToM between autism patients and schizophrenia patients. This study aimed to investigate to what extent high-functioning autism patients and schizophrenia patients share and differ in ToM performance. Thirty high-functioning autism patients, 30 schizophrenia patients and 30 healthy individuals were recruited. Participants were matched in age, gender and estimated intelligence quotient. The verbal-based Faux Pas Task and the visual-based Yoni Task were utilised to examine first- and higher-order, affective and cognitive ToM. The task/item difficulty of two paradigms was examined using mixed model analyses of variance (ANOVAs). Multiple ANOVAs and mixed model ANOVAs were used to examine group differences in ToM. The Faux Pas Task was more difficult than the Yoni Task. High-functioning autism patients showed more severely impaired verbal-based ToM in the Faux Pas Task, but shared similar visual-based ToM impairments in the Yoni Task with schizophrenia patients. The findings that individuals with high-functioning autism shared similar but more severe impairments in verbal ToM than individuals with schizophrenia support the autism-schizophrenia continuum. The finding that verbal-based but not visual-based ToM was more impaired in high-functioning autism patients than schizophrenia patients could be attributable to the varied task/item difficulty between the two paradigms.

Performances on a cognitive theory of mind task: specific decline or general cognitive deficits? Evidence from normal aging.

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Fliss, Rafika; Lemerre, Marion; Mollard, Audrey

2016-06-01

Compromised theory of mind (ToM) can be explained either by a failure to implement specific representational capacities (mental state representations) or by more general executive selection demands. In older adult populations, evidence supporting affected executive functioning and cognitive ToM in normal aging are reported. However, links between these two functions remain unclear. In the present paper, we address these shortcomings by using a specific task of ToM and classical executive tasks. We studied, using an original cognitive ToM task, the effect of age on ToM performances, in link with the progressive executive decline. 96 elderly participants were recruited. They were asked to perform a cognitive ToM task, and 5 executive tests (Stroop test and Hayling Sentence Completion Test to appreciate inhibitory process, Trail Making Test and Verbal Fluency for shifting assessment and backward span dedicated to estimate working memory capacity). The results show changes in cognitive ToM performance according to executive demands. Correlational studies indicate a significant relationship between ToM performance and the selected executive measures. Regression analyzes demonstrates that level of vocabulary and age as the best predictors of ToM performance. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that ToM deficits are related to age-related domain-general decline rather than as to a breakdown in specialized representational system. The implications of these findings for the nature of social cognition tests in normal aging are also discussed.

Investigating Executive Working Memory and Phonological Short-Term Memory in Relation to Fluency and Self-Repair Behavior in L2 Speech

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Georgiadou, Effrosyni; Roehr-Brackin, Karen

2017-01-01

This paper reports the findings of a study investigating the relationship of executive working memory (WM) and phonological short-term memory (PSTM) to fluency and self-repair behavior during an unrehearsed oral task performed by second language (L2) speakers of English at two levels of proficiency, elementary and lower intermediate. Correlational…

Comparison of diffusion-weighted fMRI and BOLD fMRI responses in a verbal working memory task

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Aso, Toshihiko; Urayama, Shin-ichi; Fukuyama, Hidenao; Le Bihan, Denis

2013-01-01

Diffusion-weighted functional MRI (DfMRI) has been reported to have a different response pattern in the visual cortex than that of BOLD-fMRI. Especially, the DfMRI signal shows a constantly faster response at both onset and offset of the stimulus, suggesting that the DfMRI signal might be more directly linked to neuronal events than the hemodynamic response. However, because the DfMRI response also contains a residual sensitivity to BOLD this hypothesis has been challenged. Using a verbal working memory task we show that the DfMRI time-course features are preserved outside visual cortices, but also less liable to between-subject/between-regional variation than the BOLD response. The overall findings not only support the feasibility of DfMRI as an approach for functional brain imaging, but also strengthen the uniqueness of the DfMRI signal origin. (authors)

Levodopa versus non-levodopa brain language fMRI in Parkinson’s disease

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Paula Ricci Arantes

2012-06-01

Full Text Available Objective: To identify the effect of levodopa in language areas inParkinson’s disease patients. Methods: We evaluated 50 patientswith mild to moderate Parkinson’s disease, age and gender pairedto 47 healthy volunteers. We selected two homogeneous groupsof 18 patients taking levodopa and 7 no levodopa patients. Thefunctional magnetic resonance imaging verbal fluency task, withlow and high cognitive demands, was performed at a 3T magneticresonance imaging equipment. Data was analyzed with XBAMsoftware for group maps and ANOVA comparison. Results: Patientswithout levodopa had more activation than the ones with levodopa inthe medial frontal and in the left frontal and parieto-occipital areas.The striatal activation in patients taking levodopa had similar resultof the activation detected in the healthy volunteer group. Parietooccipitalareas were less activated in the levodopa group than in theno levodopa one. Conclusion: Parkinson’s disease patients withoutlevodopa replacement, during a verbal fluency effort, had morediffuse and intense cerebral activation in left hemisphere, mainlyin the frontal and parieto-occipital areas. The striatal activation inverbal fluency of patients with levodopa intake was more similar tothe activation found in healthy volunteers. These initial evidencessuggested a role of levodopa inhibiting activation in parieto-occipitalcompensating areas.

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

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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…

Prediction during sentence comprehension in aphasia

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Michael Walsh Dickey

2014-04-01

Full Text Available Much recent psycholinguistic work has focused on prediction in language comprehension (Altmann & Kamide, 1999; Federmeier, 2007; Levy, 2008. Unimpaired adults predict upcoming words and phrases based on material in the preceding context, like verbs (Altmann & Kamide, 1999 or constraining sentence contexts (Federmeier, 2007. Several models have tied rapid prediction to the language production system (Federmeier, 2007; Pickering & Garrod, 2013; Dell & Chang, 2014. Evidence for this link comes from that fact that older adults with lower verbal fluency show less predictive behavior (Federmeier, et al., 2010; DeLong, et al., 2012. Prediction in aphasic language comprehension has not been widely investigated, even though constraining sentence contexts are strongly facilitative for naming in aphasia (e.g., Love & Webb, 1977. Mack, et al. (2013 found in a visual-world task that people with aphasia (PWA do not predict upcoming objects based on verbs (cf. Altmann & Kamide, 1999. This finding suggests that prediction may be reduced in aphasia. However, it is unclear whether reduced prediction was caused by language-production impairments: all the PWA in their study had non-fluent aphasia. The current study examined whether PWA show evidence of prediction based on constraining sentence contexts (e.g., Federmeier, 2007. Specifically, it tested whether they exhibited facilitation for highly predictable words in reading, using materials that have previously demonstrated strong predictability effects for unimpaired adults (Rayner, et al., 2004. In addition, it tested whether differences in language-production ability among PWA accounted for differences in predictive behavior (viz. Pickering & Garrod, 2013; Dell & Chang, 2014. Eight PWA read sentences adapted from Rayner, et al. (2004 in a self-paced reading task. The materials crossed word frequency with predictability: high- vs. low-frequency words (bottle/diaper were preceded by contexts which made them

Combined Dual-Task Gait Training and Aerobic Exercise to Improve Cognition, Mobility, and Vascular Health in Community-Dwelling Older Adults at Risk for Future Cognitive Decline1.

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Gregory, Michael A; Boa Sorte Silva, Narlon C; Gill, Dawn P; McGowan, Cheri L; Liu-Ambrose, Teresa; Shoemaker, J Kevin; Hachinski, Vladimir; Holmes, Jeff; Petrella, Robert J

2017-01-01

This 6-month experimental case series study investigated the effects of a dual-task gait training and aerobic exercise intervention on cognition, mobility, and cardiovascular health in community-dwelling older adults without dementia. Participants exercised 40 min/day, 3 days/week for 26 weeks on a Biodex GaitTrainer2 treadmill. Participants were assessed at baseline (V0), interim (V1: 12-weeks), intervention endpoint (V2: 26-weeks), and study endpoint (V3: 52-weeks). The study outcomes included: cognition [executive function (EF), processing speed, verbal fluency, and memory]; mobility: usual & dual-task gait (speed, step length, and stride time variability); and vascular health: ambulatory blood pressure, carotid arterial compliance, and intima-media thickness (cIMT). Fifty-six participants [age: 70(6) years; 61% female] were included in this study. Significant improvements following the exercise program (V2) were observed in cognition: EF (p = 0.002), processing speed (p coding (p memory [immediate recall (p dual-task gait speed (p = 0.002 and p dual-task gait training and aerobic exercise improved performance on a number of cognitive outcomes, while increasing usual & dual-task gait speed and step length in a sample of older adults without dementia.

Using Visual Strategies to Support Verbal Comprehension in an Adolescent with Down Syndrome

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Lecas, Jean-Francois; Mazaud, Anne-Marie; Reibel, Esther; Rey, Arnaud

2011-01-01

It has been frequently reported that children with Down syndrome have deficits in verbal short-term memory while having relatively good performance in visual short-term memory tasks. Such verbal deficits have a detrimental effect on various high-level cognitive processes, most notably language comprehension. In this study, we report the case of an…

Decoding human mental states by whole-head EEG+fNIRS during category fluency task performance

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Omurtag, Ahmet; Aghajani, Haleh; Onur Keles, Hasan

2017-12-01

Objective. Concurrent scalp electroencephalography (EEG) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), which we refer to as EEG+fNIRS, promises greater accuracy than the individual modalities while remaining nearly as convenient as EEG. We sought to quantify the hybrid system’s ability to decode mental states and compare it with its unimodal components. Approach. We recorded from healthy volunteers taking the category fluency test and applied machine learning techniques to the data. Main results. EEG+fNIRS’s decoding accuracy was greater than that of its subsystems, partly due to the new type of neurovascular features made available by hybrid data. Significance. Availability of an accurate and practical decoding method has potential implications for medical diagnosis, brain-computer interface design, and neuroergonomics.

Typical intellectual engagement and cognition in the ninth decade of life: The Lothian Birth Cohort 1921.

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von Stumm, Sophie; Deary, Ian J

2012-09-01

Investment traits--the tendency to seek out and engage in cognitive activity--might affect intellectual growth across the life span, specifically the development from fluid to crystallized intelligence. Here we explore how childhood IQ at age 11 years, IQ at age 79, and the investment trait Typical Intellectual Engagement (TIE) at age 81 affect the mean level and change in verbal fluency scores, used as an indicator of crystallized intelligence, across the ages 79, 83, and 87 in the Lothian Birth Cohort 1921 (maximum N = 569; Deary, Whiteman, Starr, Whalley, & Fox, 2004). A first latent growth model showed significant variance in the mean level of verbal fluency and significant decline in verbal fluency from age 79 to age 87. The rate of change was invariant across study participants in the Lothian Birth Cohort 1921. A second model found that IQ at age 11 significantly predicted IQ at age 79 (β = .66; p age 11 and 79 and TIE accounted for 25.5% of the variance in verbal fluency. A final model identified the TIE subfactor of intellectual curiosity as a significant mediator of the effect of IQ on verbal fluency; the TIE subfactors abstract thinking, reading, and problem solving showed no significant associations. In summary, TIE--in particular, intellectual curiosity--significantly mediated the effects of IQ on crystallized intelligence in old age. Because there was no significant between-subjects variance in verbal fluency trajectories in the current study, neither TIE nor IQ were associated with individual differences in cognitive decline.

Neurophysiological evidence that perceptions of fluency produce mere exposure effects.

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Leynes, P Andrew; Addante, Richard J

2016-08-01

Recent exposure to people or objects increases liking ratings, the "mere exposure effect" (Zajonc in American Psychologist, 35, 117-123, 1968), and an increase in processing fluency has been identified as a potential mechanism for producing this effect. This fluency hypothesis was directly tested by altering the trial-by-trial image clarity (i.e., fluency) while Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) were recorded. In Experiment 1, clarity was altered across two trial blocks that each had homogenous trial-by-trial clarity, whereas clarity varied randomly across trials in Experiment 2. Blocking or randomizing image clarity across trials was expected to produce different levels of relative fluency and alter mere exposure effects. The mere exposure effect (i.e., old products liked more than new products) was observed when stimulus clarity remained constant across trials, and clear image ERPs were more positive than blurry image ERPs. Importantly, these patterns were reversed when clarity varied randomly across test trials, such that participants liked clear images more than blurry (i.e., no mere exposure effect) and clear image ERPs were more negative than blurry image ERPs. The findings provide direct experimental support from both behavioral and electrophysiological measures that, in some contexts, mere exposure is the product of top-down interpretations of fluency.

Intrinsic brain indices of verbal working memory capacity in children and adolescents

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Zhen Yang

2015-10-01

Full Text Available Working memory (WM is central to the acquisition of knowledge and skills throughout childhood and adolescence. While numerous behavioral and task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI studies have examined WM development, few have used resting-state fMRI (R-fMRI. Here, we present a systematic R-fMRI examination of age-related differences in the neural indices of verbal WM performance in a cross-sectional pediatric sample (ages: 7–17; n = 68, using data-driven approaches. Verbal WM capacity was measured with the digit span task, a commonly used educational and clinical assessment. We found distinct neural indices of digit span forward (DSF and backward (DSB performance, reflecting their unique neuropsychological demands. Regardless of age, DSB performance was related to intrinsic properties of brain areas previously implicated in attention and cognitive control, while DSF performance was related to areas less commonly implicated in verbal WM storage (precuneus, lateral visual areas. From a developmental perspective, DSF exhibited more robust age-related differences in brain–behavior relationships than DSB, and implicated a broader range of networks (ventral attention, default, somatomotor, limbic networks – including a number of regions not commonly associated with verbal WM (angular gyrus, subcallosum. These results highlight the importance of examining the neurodevelopment of verbal WM and of considering regions beyond the “usual suspects”.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in the Elderly

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Michael P. Philpot

1998-01-01

Full Text Available Four cases of obsessive-compulsive disorder arising in late life in association with a presumed organic aetiology are described. Three of the four had brief episodes of OCD earlier in their lives. Neuropsychological assessment demonstrated impairments in verbal fluency and visuo-spatial tasks. No case exhibited global intellectual impairment. The two patients who complied with appropriate treatment became asymptomatic after 4–6 months.

Hemispatial neglect and serial order in verbal working memory.

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Antoine, Sophie; Ranzini, Mariagrazia; van Dijck, Jean-Philippe; Slama, Hichem; Bonato, Mario; Tousch, Ann; Dewulf, Myrtille; Bier, Jean-Christophe; Gevers, Wim

2018-01-09

Working memory refers to our ability to actively maintain and process a limited amount of information during a brief period of time. Often, not only the information itself but also its serial order is crucial for good task performance. It was recently proposed that serial order is grounded in spatial cognition. Here, we compared performance of a group of right hemisphere-damaged patients with hemispatial neglect to healthy controls in verbal working memory tasks. Participants memorized sequences of consonants at span level and had to judge whether a target consonant belonged to the memorized sequence (item task) or whether a pair of consonants were presented in the same order as in the memorized sequence (order task). In line with this idea that serial order is grounded in spatial cognition, we found that neglect patients made significantly more errors in the order task than in the item task compared to healthy controls. Furthermore, this deficit seemed functionally related to neglect severity and was more frequently observed following right posterior brain damage. Interestingly, this specific impairment for serial order in verbal working memory was not lateralized. We advance the hypotheses of a potential contribution to the deficit of serial order in neglect patients of either or both (1) reduced spatial working memory capacity that enables to keep track of the spatial codes that provide memorized items with a positional context, (2) a spatial compression of these codes in the intact representational space. © 2018 The British Psychological Society.

Verbal and nonverbal behavior of ability-grouped dyads

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Jones, M. Gail; Carter, Glenda

In this study we describe the social interactions of ability-grouped dyads as they constructed knowledge of balance concepts to elucidate the relationship between interactions and conceptual growth. The verbal and nonverbal behaviors of 30 fifth-grade students were recorded as they completed three activities related to balance. These student interactions were examined within a framework of social cognition. For each dyad, characteristics of ability-grouped dyads were identified. Results revealed that high-achieving students effectively used prior experiences, maintained focus on the learning task, and were able to manipulate the equipment effectively to construct knowledge. Low-achieving students exhibited off-task behavior, lacked a metacognitive framework for organizing the learning tasks, centered on irrelevant features of the equipment, and were unable to use language effectively to mediate learning. Within low-high student dyads, high-achieving students typically modeled thinking processes and strategies for manipulating equipment. In addition, they focused the low-achieving students on the components of the tasks while verbally monitoring their progress, thus enabling low students to identify the critical features necessary for concept construction. These results highlighted the differences that students have in the use of language and tools. Low students' inefficient use of tools has implications for the ways science teachers structure lessons and group students for laboratory work.Received: 8 March 1993; Revised: 6 January 1994;

Contrasting Complement Control, Temporal Adjunct Control and Controlled Verbal Gerund Subjects in ASD: The Role of Contextual Cues in Reference Assignment

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Janke, Vikki; Perovic, Alexandra

2017-01-01

This study examines two complex syntactic dependencies (complement control and sentence-final temporal adjunct control) and one pragmatic dependency (controlled verbal gerund subjects) in children with ASD. Sixteen high-functioning (HFA) children (aged 6 to 16) with a diagnosis of autism and no language impairment, matched on age, gender and non-verbal MA to one TD control group, and on age, gender and verbal MA to another TD control group, undertook three picture-selection tasks. Task 1 meas...

Using neuroplasticity-based auditory training to improve verbal memory in schizophrenia.

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Fisher, Melissa; Holland, Christine; Merzenich, Michael M; Vinogradov, Sophia

2009-07-01

Impaired verbal memory in schizophrenia is a key rate-limiting factor for functional outcome, does not respond to currently available medications, and shows only modest improvement after conventional behavioral remediation. The authors investigated an innovative approach to the remediation of verbal memory in schizophrenia, based on principles derived from the basic neuroscience of learning-induced neuroplasticity. The authors report interim findings in this ongoing study. Fifty-five clinically stable schizophrenia subjects were randomly assigned to either 50 hours of computerized auditory training or a control condition using computer games. Those receiving auditory training engaged in daily computerized exercises that placed implicit, increasing demands on auditory perception through progressively more difficult auditory-verbal working memory and verbal learning tasks. Relative to the control group, subjects who received active training showed significant gains in global cognition, verbal working memory, and verbal learning and memory. They also showed reliable and significant improvement in auditory psychophysical performance; this improvement was significantly correlated with gains in verbal working memory and global cognition. Intensive training in early auditory processes and auditory-verbal learning results in substantial gains in verbal cognitive processes relevant to psychosocial functioning in schizophrenia. These gains may be due to a training method that addresses the early perceptual impairments in the illness, that exploits intact mechanisms of repetitive practice in schizophrenia, and that uses an intensive, adaptive training approach.

Fluency Training in the ESL Classroom: An Experimental Study of Fluency Development and Proceduralization

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Jong, N. de; Perfetti, C.A.

2011-01-01

The present study investigates the role of speech repetition in oral fluency development. Twenty-four students enrolled in English-as-a-second-language classes performed three training sessions in which they recorded three speeches, of 4, 3, and 2 min, respectively. Some students spoke about the

A Strategic Necessity: Building Senior Leadership's Fluency in Digital Technology

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Kolomitz, Kara; Cabellon, Edmund T.

2016-01-01

This chapter describes the opportunity for senior student affairs officers (SSAOs) to develop an increased digital fluency to meet the needs of various constituencies in the digital age. The authors explore what a digital fluency is, how it might impact SSAOs' leadership potential, and the benefits for their respective divisions.

What oral text reading fluency can reveal about reading comprehension

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Veenendaal, N.J.; Groen, M.A.; Verhoeven, L.T.W.

2015-01-01

Text reading fluency – the ability to read quickly, accurately and with a natural intonation – has been proposed as a predictor of reading comprehension. In the current study, we examined the role of oral text reading fluency, defined as text reading rate and text reading prosody, as a contributor

Dual-task interference effects on cross-modal numerical order and sound intensity judgments: the more the louder?

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Alards-Tomalin, Doug; Walker, Alexander C; Nepon, Hillary; Leboe-McGowan, Launa C

2017-09-01

In the current study, cross-task interactions between number order and sound intensity judgments were assessed using a dual-task paradigm. Participants first categorized numerical sequences composed of Arabic digits as either ordered (ascending, descending) or non-ordered. Following each number sequence, participants then had to judge the intensity level of a target sound. Experiment 1 emphasized processing the two tasks independently (serial processing), while Experiments 2 and 3 emphasized processing the two tasks simultaneously (parallel processing). Cross-task interference occurred only when the task required parallel processing and was specific to ascending numerical sequences, which led to a higher proportion of louder sound intensity judgments. In Experiment 4 we examined whether this unidirectional interaction was the result of participants misattributing enhanced processing fluency experienced on ascending sequences as indicating a louder target sound. The unidirectional finding could not be entirely attributed to misattributed processing fluency, and may also be connected to experientially derived conceptual associations between ascending number sequences and greater magnitude, consistent with conceptual mapping theory.

Evidence for spontaneous serial refreshing in verbal working memory?

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Vergauwe, Evie; Langerock, Naomi; Cowan, Nelson

2018-04-01

Working memory (WM) keeps information temporarily accessible for ongoing cognition. One proposed mechanism to keep information active in WM is refreshing. This mechanism is assumed to operate by bringing memory items into the focus of attention, thereby serially refreshing the content of WM. We report two experiments in which we examine evidence for the spontaneous occurrence of serial refreshing in verbal WM. Participants had to remember series of red letters, while black probe letters were presented between these memory items, with each probe to be judged present in or absent from the list presented so far, as quickly as possible (i.e., the probe-span task). Response times to the probes were used to infer the status of the representations in WM and, in particular, to examine whether the content of the focus of attention changed over time, as would be expected if serial refreshing occurs spontaneously during inter-item pauses. In sharp contrast with this hypothesis, our results indicate that the last-presented memory item remained in the focus of attention during the inter-item pauses of the probe-span task. We discuss how these findings help to define the boundary conditions of spontaneous refreshing of verbal material in WM, and discuss implications for verbal WM maintenance and forgetting.

The Contribution of Verbal Working Memory to Deaf Children’s Oral and Written Production

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Arfé, Barbara; Rossi, Cristina; Sicoli, Silvia

2015-01-01

This study investigated the contribution of verbal working memory to the oral and written story production of deaf children. Participants were 29 severely to profoundly deaf children aged 8–13 years and 29 hearing controls, matched for grade level. The children narrated a picture story orally and in writing and performed a reading comprehension test, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fourth Edition forward digit span task, and a reading span task. Oral and written stories were analyzed at the microstructural (i.e., clause) and macrostructural (discourse) levels. Hearing children’s stories scored higher than deaf children’s at both levels. Verbal working memory skills contributed to deaf children’s oral and written production over and above age and reading comprehension skills. Verbal rehearsal skills (forward digit span) contributed significantly to deaf children’s ability to organize oral and written stories at the microstructural level; they also accounted for unique variance at the macrostructural level in writing. Written story production appeared to involve greater verbal working memory resources than oral story production. PMID:25802319

Habilidades de praxia verbal e não-verbal em indivíduos gagos Verbal and non-verbal praxic abilities in stutterers

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Natália Casagrande Brabo

2009-12-01

Full Text Available OBJETIVO: caracterizar as habilidades de praxias verbal e não-verbal em indivíduos gagos. MÉTODOS: participaram do estudo 40 indivíduos, com idade igual ou superior a 18 anos, do sexo masculino e feminino: 20 gagos adultos e 20 sem queixas de comunicação. Para a avaliação das praxias verbal e não-verbal, os indivíduos foram submetidos à aplicação do Protocolo de Avaliação da Apraxia Verbal e Não-verbal (Martins e Ortiz, 2004. RESULTADOS: com relação às habilidades de praxia verbal houve diferença estatisticamente significante no número de disfluências típicas e atípicas apresentadas pelos grupos estudados. Quanto à tipologia das disfluências observou-se que nas típicas houve diferença estatisticamente significante entre os grupos estudados apenas na repetição de frase, e nas atípicas, houve diferença estatisticamente significante, tanto no bloqueio quanto na repetição de sílaba e no prolongamento. Com relação às habilidades de praxia não-verbal, não foram observadas diferenças estatisticamente significantes entre os indivíduos estudados na realização dos movimentos de lábios, língua e mandíbula, isolados e em sequência. CONCLUSÃO: com relação às habilidades de praxia verbal, os gagos apresentaram frequência maior de rupturas da fala, tanto de disfluências típicas quanto de atípicas, quando comparado ao grupo controle. Já na realização de movimentos práxicos isolados e em sequência, ou seja, nas habilidades de praxia não-verbal, os indivíduos gagos não se diferenciaram dos fluentes não confirmando a hipótese de que o início precoce da gagueira poderia comprometer as habilidades de praxia não-verbal.PURPOSE: to characterize the verbal and non-verbal praxic abilities in adult stutterers. METHODS: for this research, 40 over 18-year old men and women were selected: 20 stuttering adults and 20 without communication complaints. For the praxis evaluation, they were submitted to

Cognitive contributions to theory of mind ability in children with a traumatic head injury.

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Levy, Naomi Kahana; Milgram, Noach

2016-01-01

The objective of the current study is to examine the contribution of intellectual abilities, executive functions (EF), and facial emotion recognition to difficulties in Theory of Mind (ToM) abilities in children with a traumatic head injury. Israeli children with a traumatic head injury were compared with their non-injured counterparts. Each group included 18 children (12 males) ages 7-13. Measurements included reading the mind in the eyes, facial emotion recognition, reasoning the other's characteristics based on motive and outcome, Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices, similarities and digit span (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children - Revised 95 subscales), verbal fluency, and the Behaviour Rating Inventory of Executive Functions. Non-injured children performed significantly better on ToM, abstract reasoning, and EF measures compared with children with a traumatic head injury. However, differences in ToM abilities between the groups were no longer significant after controlling for abstract reasoning, working memory, verbal fluency, or facial emotion recognition. Impaired ToM recognition and reasoning abilities after a head injury may result from other cognitive impairments. In children with mild and moderate head injury, poorer performance on ToM tasks may reflect poorer abstract reasoning, a general tendency to concretize stimuli, working memory and verbal fluency deficits, and difficulties in facial emotion recognition, rather than deficits in the ability to understand the other's thoughts and emotions. ToM impairments may be secondary to a range of cognitive deficits in determining social outcomes in this population.

Normal-range verbal-declarative memory in schizophrenia.

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Heinrichs, R Walter; Parlar, Melissa; Pinnock, Farena

2017-10-01

Cognitive impairment is prevalent and related to functional outcome in schizophrenia, but a significant minority of the patient population overlaps with healthy controls on many performance measures, including declarative-verbal-memory tasks. In this study, we assessed the validity, clinical, and functional implications of normal-range (NR), verbal-declarative memory in schizophrenia. Performance normality was defined using normative data for 8 basic California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT-II; Delis, Kramer, Kaplan, & Ober, 2000) recall and recognition trials. Schizophrenia patients (n = 155) and healthy control participants (n = 74) were assessed for performance normality, defined as scores within 1 SD of the normative mean on all 8 trials, and assigned to normal- and below-NR memory groups. NR schizophrenia patients (n = 26) and control participants (n = 51) did not differ in general verbal ability, on a reading-based estimate of premorbid ability, across all 8 CVLT-II-score comparisons or in terms of intrusion and false-positive errors and auditory working memory. NR memory patients did not differ from memory-impaired patients (n = 129) in symptom severity, and both patient groups were significantly and similarly disabled in terms of functional status in the community. These results confirm a subpopulation of schizophrenia patients with normal, verbal-declarative-memory performance and no evidence of decline from higher premorbid ability levels. However, NR patients did not experience less severe psychopathology, nor did they show advantage in community adjustment relative to impaired patients. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

screening for cognitive impairment in late onset depression in a Brazilian sample using the BBRC-edu

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Tânia Maria da Silva Novaretti

Full Text Available ABSTRACT Depression and dementia are the most prevalent neuropsychiatric disorders in the elderly population. Alzheimer's disease is the leading cause of dementia in most countries, being responsible for more than half of all dementia cases. Late-onset depression is a frequent cause of cognitive decline in the elderly. Differentiating between cognitive impairment secondary to depression and incipient dementia poses a challenge in the clinical setting. Objective: To evaluate the performance of elderly depressed patients using the BBRC-Edu. Methods: We studied 25 patients with late onset depression (mean age: 73.6 y (6.6; schooling: 9.1 y (5.7 and 30 patients with mild AD (mean age 76.6 y (5.4; schooling: 7.5 y (7.1, who were compared to a control group of 30 healthy elderly (mean age 73.8 y (5.8; schooling: 9.1 y (5.4 using the CERAD and BBRC-Edu batteries. Results: For the CERAD battery, depressed patients performed better than AD patients on all tasks (p0.05, and performed poorer than controls on verbal fluency (animals and Word List Recall tasks (p0.05, and performed worse than controls on Learning (second presentation and verbal fluency (fruits tasks (p<0.0001. Conclusion: Overall performance on the BBRC-Edu allowed differentiation of controls and depressed patients from AD patients.

The Effect of English Verbal Songs on Connected Speech Aspects of Adult English Learners’ Speech Production

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Farshid Tayari Ashtiani

2015-02-01

Full Text Available The present study was an attempt to investigate the impact of English verbal songs on connected speech aspects of adult English learners’ speech production. 40 participants were selected based on the results of their performance in a piloted and validated version of NELSON test given to 60 intermediate English learners in a language institute in Tehran. Then they were equally distributed in two control and experimental groups and received a validated pretest of reading aloud and speaking in English. Afterward, the treatment was performed in 18 sessions by singing preselected songs culled based on some criteria such as popularity, familiarity, amount, and speed of speech delivery, etc. In the end, the posttests of reading aloud and speaking in English were administered. The results revealed that the treatment had statistically positive effects on the connected speech aspects of English learners’ speech production at statistical .05 level of significance. Meanwhile, the results represented that there was not any significant difference between the experimental group’s mean scores on the posttests of reading aloud and speaking. It was thus concluded that providing the EFL learners with English verbal songs could positively affect connected speech aspects of both modes of speech production, reading aloud and speaking. The Findings of this study have pedagogical implications for language teachers to be more aware and knowledgeable of the benefits of verbal songs to promote speech production of language learners in terms of naturalness and fluency. Keywords: English Verbal Songs, Connected Speech, Speech Production, Reading Aloud, Speaking

Effect of Modality and Task Type on Interlanguage Variation

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Kim, Hye Yeong

2017-01-01

An essential component for assessing the accuracy and fluency of language learners is understanding how mode of communication and task type affect performance in second-language (L2) acquisition. This study investigates how text-based synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) and face-to-face (F2F) oral interaction can influence the…

Fluency: an aim in teaching and a criterion in assessment

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Aud Marit Simensen

2010-05-01

Full Text Available This article investigates the concept ‘fluency’ from different perspectives. When fluency is an aim in teaching, a thorough comprehension of the concept among teachers is a prerequisite for appropriate planning of instruction, including the choice of appropriate classroom activities. When fluency is an assessment criterion, it is even more important that examiners have a shared perception of the concept. The present article starts by presenting common perceptions of the concept and goes on to explore some of the current research. Next, it provides a historical overview of the place of fluency in teaching theory and explains some of the preconditions for the inclusion of this concept among teaching objectives and assessment criteria. It will also, as an illustration, give an outline of the position of the concept over time in the Norwegian school system on the basis of an analysis of the relevant syllabuses. Finally, the article explicates the notion of language use as a complex cognitive skill and explores current method¬ological ideas about teaching towards fluency.

Emotion Decoding and Incidental Processing Fluency as Antecedents of Attitude Certainty.

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Petrocelli, John V; Whitmire, Melanie B

2017-07-01

Previous research demonstrates that attitude certainty influences the degree to which an attitude changes in response to persuasive appeals. In the current research, decoding emotions from facial expressions and incidental processing fluency, during attitude formation, are examined as antecedents of both attitude certainty and attitude change. In Experiment 1, participants who decoded anger or happiness during attitude formation expressed their greater attitude certainty, and showed more resistance to persuasion than participants who decoded sadness. By manipulating the emotion decoded, the diagnosticity of processing fluency experienced during emotion decoding, and the gaze direction of the social targets, Experiment 2 suggests that the link between emotion decoding and attitude certainty results from incidental processing fluency. Experiment 3 demonstrated that fluency in processing irrelevant stimuli influences attitude certainty, which in turn influences resistance to persuasion. Implications for appraisal-based accounts of attitude formation and attitude change are discussed.

The Effects of Fluency Enhancing Conditions on Sensorimotor Control of Speech in Typically Fluent Speakers: An EEG Mu Rhythm Study

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Tiffani Kittilstved

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Objective: To determine whether changes in sensorimotor control resulting from speaking conditions that induce fluency in people who stutter (PWS can be measured using electroencephalographic (EEG mu rhythms in neurotypical speakers.Methods: Non-stuttering (NS adults spoke in one control condition (solo speaking and four experimental conditions (choral speech, delayed auditory feedback (DAF, prolonged speech and pseudostuttering. Independent component analysis (ICA was used to identify sensorimotor μ components from EEG recordings. Time-frequency analyses measured μ-alpha (8–13 Hz and μ-beta (15–25 Hz event-related synchronization (ERS and desynchronization (ERD during each speech condition.Results: 19/24 participants contributed μ components. Relative to the control condition, the choral and DAF conditions elicited increases in μ-alpha ERD in the right hemisphere. In the pseudostuttering condition, increases in μ-beta ERD were observed in the left hemisphere. No differences were present between the prolonged speech and control conditions.Conclusions: Differences observed in the experimental conditions are thought to reflect sensorimotor control changes. Increases in right hemisphere μ-alpha ERD likely reflect increased reliance on auditory information, including auditory feedback, during the choral and DAF conditions. In the left hemisphere, increases in μ-beta ERD during pseudostuttering may have resulted from the different movement characteristics of this task compared with the solo speaking task. Relationships to findings in stuttering are discussed.Significance: Changes in sensorimotor control related feedforward and feedback control in fluency-enhancing speech manipulations can be measured using time-frequency decompositions of EEG μ rhythms in neurotypical speakers. This quiet, non-invasive, and temporally sensitive technique may be applied to learn more about normal sensorimotor control and fluency enhancement in PWS.

Children's Verbal Working Memory: Role of Processing Complexity in Predicting Spoken Sentence Comprehension

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Magimairaj, Beula M.; Montgomery, James W.

2012-01-01

Purpose: This study investigated the role of processing complexity of verbal working memory tasks in predicting spoken sentence comprehension in typically developing children. Of interest was whether simple and more complex working memory tasks have similar or different power in predicting sentence comprehension. Method: Sixty-five children (6- to…

Classification of user performance in the Ruff Figural Fluency Test based on eye-tracking features

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Borys Magdalena

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Cognitive assessment in neurological diseases represents a relevant topic due to its diagnostic significance in detecting disease, but also in assessing progress of the treatment. Computer-based tests provide objective and accurate cognitive skills and capacity measures. The Ruff Figural Fluency Test (RFFT provides information about non-verbal capacity for initiation, planning, and divergent reasoning. The traditional paper form of the test was transformed into a computer application and examined. The RFFT was applied in an experiment performed among 70 male students to assess their cognitive performance in the laboratory environment. Each student was examined in three sequential series. Besides the students’ performances measured by using in app keylogging, the eye-tracking data obtained by non-invasive video-based oculography were gathered, from which several features were extracted. Eye-tracking features combined with performance measures (a total number of designs and/or error ratio were applied in machine learning classification. Various classification algorithms were applied, and their accuracy, specificity, sensitivity and performance were compared.

VBOT: Motivating computational and complex systems fluencies with constructionist virtual/physical robotics

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Berland, Matthew W.

As scientists use the tools of computational and complex systems theory to broaden science perspectives (e.g., Bar-Yam, 1997; Holland, 1995; Wolfram, 2002), so can middle-school students broaden their perspectives using appropriate tools. The goals of this dissertation project are to build, study, evaluate, and compare activities designed to foster both computational and complex systems fluencies through collaborative constructionist virtual and physical robotics. In these activities, each student builds an agent (e.g., a robot-bird) that must interact with fellow students' agents to generate a complex aggregate (e.g., a flock of robot-birds) in a participatory simulation environment (Wilensky & Stroup, 1999a). In a participatory simulation, students collaborate by acting in a common space, teaching each other, and discussing content with one another. As a result, the students improve both their computational fluency and their complex systems fluency, where fluency is defined as the ability to both consume and produce relevant content (DiSessa, 2000). To date, several systems have been designed to foster computational and complex systems fluencies through computer programming and collaborative play (e.g., Hancock, 2003; Wilensky & Stroup, 1999b); this study suggests that, by supporting the relevant fluencies through collaborative play, they become mutually reinforcing. In this work, I will present both the design of the VBOT virtual/physical constructionist robotics learning environment and a comparative study of student interaction with the virtual and physical environments across four middle-school classrooms, focusing on the contrast in systems perspectives differently afforded by the two environments. In particular, I found that while performance gains were similar overall, the physical environment supported agent perspectives on aggregate behavior, and the virtual environment supported aggregate perspectives on agent behavior. The primary research questions

Increased activation in Broca's area after cognitive remediation in schizophrenia.

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Vianin, Pascal; Urben, Sébastien; Magistretti, Pierre; Marquet, Pierre; Fornari, Eleonora; Jaugey, Laure

2014-03-30

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to measure changes in cerebral activity in patients with schizophrenia after participation in the Cognitive Remediation Program for Schizophrenia and other related disorders (RECOS). As RECOS therapists make use of problem-solving and verbal mediation techniques, known to be beneficial in the rehabilitation of dysexecutive syndromes, we expected an increased activation of frontal areas after remediation. Executive functioning and cerebral activation during a covert verbal fluency task were measured in eight patients with schizophrenia before (T1) and after (T2) 14 weeks of RECOS therapy. The same measures were recorded in eight patients with schizophrenia who did not participate in RECOS at the same intervals of time (TAU group). Increased activation in Broca's area, as well as improvements in performance of executive/frontal tasks, was observed after cognitive training. Metacognitive techniques of verbalization are hypothesized to be the main factor underlying the brain changes observed in the present study. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Evaluation of induced and evoked changes in EEG during selective attention to verbal stimuli.

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Horki, P; Bauernfeind, G; Schippinger, W; Pichler, G; Müller-Putz, G R

2016-09-01

Two challenges need to be addressed before bringing non-motor mental tasks for brain-computer interface (BCI) control to persons in a minimally conscious state (MCS), who can be behaviorally unresponsive even when proven to be consciously aware: first, keeping the cognitive demands as low as possible so that they could be fulfilled by persons with MCS. Second, increasing the control of experimental protocol (i.e. type and timing of the task performance). The goal of this study is twofold: first goal is to develop an experimental paradigm that can facilitate the performance of brain-teasers (e.g. mental subtraction and word generation) on the one hand, and can increase the control of experimental protocol on the other hand. The second goal of this study is to exploit the similar findings for mentally attending to someone else's verbal performance of brain-teaser tasks and self-performing the same tasks to setup an online BCI, and to compare it in healthy participants to the current "state-of-the-art" motor imagery (MI, sports). The response accuracies for the best performing healthy participants indicate that selective attention to verbal performance of mental subtraction (SUB) is a viable alternative to the MI. Time-frequency analysis of the SUB task in one participant with MCS did not reveal any significant (pselective attention task (i.e. mentally attending to someone else's verbal performance of mental subtraction) can modulate both induced and evoked changes in EEG, and be used for yes/no communication in an auditory scanning paradigm. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Mirror Asymmetry of Category and Letter Fluency in Traumatic Brain Injury and Alzheimer's Patients

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Capitani, Erminio; Rosci, Chiara; Saetti, Maria Cristina; Laiacona, Marcella

2009-01-01

In this study we contrasted the Category fluency and Letter fluency performance of 198 normal subjects, 57 Alzheimer's patients and 57 patients affected by traumatic brain injury (TBI). The aim was to check whether, besides the prevalence of Category fluency deficit often reported among Alzheimer's patients, the TBI group presented the opposite…

Ecstasy exposure & gender: examining components of verbal memory functioning.

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Price, Jenessa S; Shear, Paula; Lisdahl, Krista M

2014-01-01

Studies have demonstrated verbal memory deficits associated with past year ecstasy use, although specific underlying components of these deficits are less understood. Further, prior research suggests potential gender differences in ecstasy-induced serotonergic changes. Therefore, the current study investigated whether gender moderated the relationship between ecstasy exposure and components of verbal memory after controlling for polydrug use and confounding variables. Data were collected from 65 polydrug users with a wide range of ecstasy exposure (ages 18-35; 48 ecstasy and 17 marijuana users; 0-2310 ecstasy tablets). Participants completed a verbal learning and memory task, psychological questionnaires, and a drug use interview. Increased past year ecstasy exposure predicted poorer short and long delayed free and cued recalls, retention, and recall discrimination. Male ecstasy users were more susceptible to dose-dependent deficits in retention than female users. Past year ecstasy consumption was associated with verbal memory retrieval, retention, and discrimination deficits in a dose-dependent manner in a sample of healthy young adult polydrug users. Male ecstasy users were at particular risk for deficits in retention following a long delay. Gender difference may be reflective of different patterns of polydrug use as well as increased hippocampal sensitivity. Future research examining neuronal correlates of verbal memory deficits in ecstasy users are needed.

Ecstasy exposure & gender: examining components of verbal memory functioning.

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Jenessa S Price

Full Text Available Studies have demonstrated verbal memory deficits associated with past year ecstasy use, although specific underlying components of these deficits are less understood. Further, prior research suggests potential gender differences in ecstasy-induced serotonergic changes. Therefore, the current study investigated whether gender moderated the relationship between ecstasy exposure and components of verbal memory after controlling for polydrug use and confounding variables.Data were collected from 65 polydrug users with a wide range of ecstasy exposure (ages 18-35; 48 ecstasy and 17 marijuana users; 0-2310 ecstasy tablets. Participants completed a verbal learning and memory task, psychological questionnaires, and a drug use interview.Increased past year ecstasy exposure predicted poorer short and long delayed free and cued recalls, retention, and recall discrimination. Male ecstasy users were more susceptible to dose-dependent deficits in retention than female users.Past year ecstasy consumption was associated with verbal memory retrieval, retention, and discrimination deficits in a dose-dependent manner in a sample of healthy young adult polydrug users. Male ecstasy users were at particular risk for deficits in retention following a long delay. Gender difference may be reflective of different patterns of polydrug use as well as increased hippocampal sensitivity. Future research examining neuronal correlates of verbal memory deficits in ecstasy users are needed.

Working-memory training improves developmental dyslexia in Chinese children

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Yan Luo; Jing Wang; Hanrong Wu; Dongmei Zhu; Yu Zhang

2013-01-01

Although plasticity in the neural system underlies working memory, and working memory can be improved by training, there is thus far no evidence that children with developmental dyslexia can were recruited from an elementary school in Wuhan, China. They received working-memory training, including training in visuospatial memory, verbal memory, and central executive tasks. The difficulty of the tasks was adjusted based on the performance of each subject, and the training sessions lasted 40 minutes per day, for 5 weeks. The results showed that working-memory training significantly enhanced performance on the nontrained working memory tasks such as the visuospatial, the verbal domains, and central executive tasks in children with developmental dyslexia. More importantly, the visual rhyming task and reading fluency task were also significantly improved by training. Progress on working memory measures was related to changes in reading skills. These experimental findings indicate that working memory is a pivotal factor in reading development among children with developmental dyslexia, and interventions to improve working memory may help dyslexic children to become more proficient in reading.

Cognitive and behavioural deficits associated with the orbitomedial prefrontal cortex in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

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Meier, Sandra L; Charleston, Alison J; Tippett, Lynette J

2010-11-01

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a progressive disease affecting motor neurons, may variably affect cognition and behaviour. We tested the hypothesis that functions associated with orbitomedial prefrontal cortex are affected by evaluating the behavioural and cognitive performance of 18 participants with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis without dementia and 18 healthy, matched controls. We measured Theory of Mind (Faux Pas Task), emotional prosody recognition (Aprosodia Battery), reversal of behaviour in response to changes in reward (Probabilistic Reversal Learning Task), decision making without risk (Holiday Apartment Task) and aberrant behaviour (Neuropsychiatric Inventory). We also assessed dorsolateral prefrontal function, using verbal and written fluency and planning (One-touch Stockings of Cambridge), to determine whether impairments in tasks sensitive to these two prefrontal regions co-occur. The patient group was significantly impaired at identifying social faux pas, recognizing emotions and decision-making, indicating mild, but consistent impairment on most measures sensitive to orbitomedial prefrontal cortex. Significant levels of aberrant behaviour were present in 50% of patients. Patients were also impaired on verbal fluency and planning. Individual subject analyses involved computing classical dissociations between tasks sensitive to different prefrontal regions. These revealed heterogeneous patterns of impaired and spared cognitive abilities: 33% of participants had classical dissociations involving orbitomedial prefrontal tasks, 17% had classical dissociations involving dorsolateral prefrontal tasks, 22% had classical dissociations between tasks of both regions, and 28% had no classical dissociations. These data indicate subtle changes in behaviour, emotional processing, decision-making and altered social awareness, associated with orbitomedial prefrontal cortex, may be present in a significant proportion of individuals with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Why Do Boys and Girls Perform Differently on PISA Reading in Finland? The Effects of Reading Fluency, Achievement Behaviour, Leisure Reading and Homework Activity

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Torppa, Minna; Eklund, Kenneth; Sulkunen, Sari; Niemi, Pekka; Ahonen, Timo

2018-01-01

The present study examined gender gap in Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) Reading and mediators of the gender gap in a Finnish sample (n = 1,309). We examined whether the gender gap in PISA Reading performance can be understood via the effects of reading fluency, achievement behaviour (mastery orientation and task-avoidant…

Perceptual Fluency, Auditory Generation, and Metamemory: Analyzing the Perceptual Fluency Hypothesis in the Auditory Modality

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Besken, Miri; Mulligan, Neil W.

2014-01-01

Judgments of learning (JOLs) are sometimes influenced by factors that do not impact actual memory performance. One recent proposal is that perceptual fluency during encoding affects metamemory and is a basis of metacognitive illusions. In the present experiments, participants identified aurally presented words that contained inter-spliced silences…

Planning sentences while doing other things at the same time: effects of concurrent verbal and visuospatial working memory load.

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Klaus, Jana; Mädebach, Andreas; Oppermann, Frank; Jescheniak, Jörg D

2017-04-01

This study investigated to what extent advance planning during sentence production is affected by a concurrent cognitive load. In two picture-word interference experiments in which participants produced subject-verb-object sentences while ignoring auditory distractor words, we assessed advance planning at a phonological (lexeme) and at an abstract-lexical (lemma) level under visuospatial or verbal working memory (WM) load. At the phonological level, subject and object nouns were found to be activated before speech onset with concurrent visuospatial WM load, but only subject nouns were found to be activated with concurrent verbal WM load, indicating a reduced planning scope as a function of type of WM load (Experiment 1). By contrast, at the abstract-lexical level, subject and object nouns were found to be activated regardless of type of concurrent load (Experiment 2). In both experiments, sentence planning had a more detrimental effect on concurrent verbal WM task performance than on concurrent visuospatial WM task performance. Overall, our results suggest that advance planning at the phonological level is more affected by a concurrently performed verbal WM task than advance planning at the abstract-lexical level. Also, they indicate an overlap of resources allocated to phonological planning in speech production and verbal WM.

Evaluating verbal and non-verbal communication skills, in an ethnogeriatric OSCE.

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Collins, Lauren G; Schrimmer, Anne; Diamond, James; Burke, Janice

2011-05-01

Communication during medical interviews plays a large role in patient adherence, satisfaction with care, and health outcomes. Both verbal and non-verbal communication (NVC) skills are central to the development of rapport between patients and healthcare professionals. The purpose of this study was to assess the role of non-verbal and verbal communication skills on evaluations by standardized patients during an ethnogeriatric Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE). Interviews from 19 medical students, residents, and fellows in an ethnogeriatric OSCE were analyzed. Each interview was videotaped and evaluated on a 14 item verbal and an 8 item non-verbal communication checklist. The relationship between verbal and non-verbal communication skills on interview evaluations by standardized patients were examined using correlational analyses. Maintaining adequate facial expression (FE), using affirmative gestures (AG), and limiting both unpurposive movements (UM) and hand gestures (HG) had a significant positive effect on perception of interview quality during this OSCE. Non-verbal communication skills played a role in perception of overall interview quality as well as perception of culturally competent communication. Incorporating formative and summative evaluation of both verbal and non-verbal communication skills may be a critical component of curricular innovations in ethnogeriatrics, such as the OSCE. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Alternative Text Types to Improve Reading Fluency for Competent to Struggling Readers

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Timothy V. Rasinski

2016-01-01

Full Text Available This article offers instructional suggestions and strategies based on research and theoretical literature for developing reading fluency through the use of rhyming poetry and other texts beyond the narrative and informational texts that have been traditionally used for reading instruction. Readers’ lack of fluency in reading can be a monumental impediment to proficiency in good comprehension and overall reading competency. For all readers it is well established that as they progress in reading competence their reading ability grows (Stanovich, 1993/1994. This continued reading success begets continued reading growth; however, many struggling readers have difficulty in moving to a level of automaticity and fluency in their reading that enables them to engage in a successful practice. Lack of practice inhibits their reading comprehension. Readers’ abilities to effectively comprehend texts are significantly affected by their proficiency in accurate and automatic word recognition and prosody (May, 1998; Stanovich, 1993/1994; LaBerge & Samuels, 1974; Schreiber, 1991. Repeated reading practice has been shown to be a powerful way to improve these important fluency competencies. Certain texts are particularly well suited for repeated reading that improves both aspects of fluency

Verbal working memory performance correlates with regional white matter structures in the frontoparietal regions.

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Takeuchi, Hikaru; Taki, Yasuyuki; Sassa, Yuko; Hashizume, Hiroshi; Sekiguchi, Atsushi; Fukushima, Ai; Kawashima, Ryuta

2011-10-01

Working memory is the limited capacity storage system involved in the maintenance and manipulation of information over short periods of time. Previous imaging studies have suggested that the frontoparietal regions are activated during working memory tasks; a putative association between the structure of the frontoparietal regions and working memory performance has been suggested based on the analysis of individuals with varying pathologies. This study aimed to identify correlations between white matter and individual differences in verbal working memory performance in normal young subjects. We performed voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analyses using T1-weighted structural images as well as voxel-based analyses of fractional anisotropy (FA) using diffusion tensor imaging. Using the letter span task, we measured verbal working memory performance in normal young adult men and women (mean age, 21.7 years, SD=1.44; 42 men and 13 women). We observed positive correlations between working memory performance and regional white matter volume (rWMV) in the frontoparietal regions. In addition, FA was found to be positively correlated with verbal working memory performance in a white matter region adjacent to the right precuneus. These regions are consistently recruited by working memory. Our findings suggest that, among normal young subjects, verbal working memory performance is associated with various regions that are recruited during working memory tasks, and this association is not limited to specific parts of the working memory network. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

So Long, Robot Reader! A Superhero Intervention Plan for Improving Fluency

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Marcell, Barclay; Ferraro, Christine

2013-01-01

This article presents an engaging means for turning disfluent readers into prosody superstars. Each week students align with Poetry Power Man and his superhero friends to battle the evil Robot Reader and his sidekicks. The Fluency Foursome helps students adhere to the multidimensional aspects of fluency where expression and comprehension are…

An APOA1 promoter polymorphism is associated with cognitive performance in patients with multiple sclerosis.

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Koutsis, G; Panas, M; Giogkaraki, E; Karadima, G; Sfagos, C; Vassilopoulos, D

2009-02-01

Elevated ApoA1 levels have been associated with decreased dementia risk. The A-allele of the APOA1 -75G/A promoter polymorphism has been associated with elevated ApoA1 levels. We sought to investigate the effect of the APOA1 -75G/A promoter polymorphism on cognitive performance in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). A total of 138 patients with MS and 43 controls were studied and underwent neuropsychological assessment with Rao's Brief Repeatable Battery and the Stroop test. All patients were genotyped for APOA1. APOA1 A-allele carriers displayed superior overall cognitive performance compared with non-carriers (P 0.008) and had a three-fold decrease in the relative risk of overall cognitive impairment (OR 0.29, 95% CI 0.11-0.74). Regarding performance on individual cognitive domains, although APOA1 A-allele carriers performed better than non-carriers on all tests, this was significant only for semantic verbal fluency and the Stroop interference task (P 0.036 and 0.018, respectively). We found an association of the APOA1 -75G/A promoter polymorphism with cognitive performance in MS. This effect was most prominent on semantic verbal fluency and the Stroop interference task.

Same task, different strategies: How brain networks can be influenced by memory strategy

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Sanfratello, Lori; Caprihan, Arvind; Stephen, Julia M.; Knoefel, Janice E.; Adair, John C.; Qualls, Clifford; Lundy, S. Laura; Aine, Cheryl J.

2014-01-01

Previous functional neuroimaging studies demonstrated that different neural networks underlie different types of cognitive processing by engaging participants in particular tasks, such as verbal or spatial working memory (WM) tasks. However, we report here that even when a working memory task is defined as verbal or spatial, different types of memory strategies may be employed to complete it, with concomitant variations in brain activity. We developed a questionnaire to characterize the type ...

Assessment of the global intelligence and selective cognitive capacities in preterm 8-year-old children.

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Begega, Azucena; Méndez López, Magdalena; de Iscar, María Jesús; Cuesta-Izquierdo, Marcelino; Solís, Gonzalo; Fernández-Colomer, Belén; Álvarez, Luis; Méndez, Marta; Arias, Jorge L

2010-11-01

The aim of this study was to assess various cognitive abilities such as attention, IQ, reasoning, and memory related to academic achievement in 8- and 9-year-old preterm children. A total of 141 children were assessed. The preterm group (=37 weeks) comprised 63 children and was compared to 78 full-term children. Attention was evaluated using the d2 Selective Attention test, and the IQ by the L-M form of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, establishing a profile of abilities: perception, memory, comprehension, reasoning, and verbal fluency. Significant differences in IQ were found between the preterm and full-term children. Of the cognitive abilities assessed, the only significant differences were found in verbal fluency, with preterm boys showing lower verbal fluency scores than full-term children. In conclusion, all preterm groups have attention ability similar to that of full-term children. However, preterm children obtain lower scores in intelligence measures. In addition, preterm boys have verbal fluency difficulties. Taking into account the increase in preterm births, suitable intervention programs must be planned to attend the difficulties found.

The effect of topic selection on writing fluency among Japanese high school students

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Sarah Lin Lubold

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Written fluency and fluency building activities have been shown to promote linguistic choice and student voice development, increased ability to express ideas using complex grammatical structures and greater intrinsic motivation in English language learners. Since the 1970’s, process-oriented writing has been emphasized, yielding an amplified focus on meaning of student content over linguistic form precision. Current research of writing fluency must delve deeper into questions of student ownership of topic and the outcomes for low-risk activities that support fluency practice and encourage confidence building in students. The purpose of this replication study is to further explore previous findings on the effects of topic selection on writing fluency for high school English as foreign language learners. Building off of the work of Bonzo (2008, this study focused on a timed, non-graded writing activity administered to groups of Japanese engineering students in three departments: mechanical, electrical, and global engineering. The six subsequent samples for each participating student were analyzed using online text-analysis for total and unique word counts, providing data used to perform a t-test. Responses to bi-lingual student questionnaires, with prompts on self-perceived written English ability, self-efficacy and strategies for success while writing, provided additional insight into the facets of fluency. The results of these writing sessions offer both confirmation of and contrast to Bonzo’s original work, demonstrate increased student meaning making, and support the use of free writing activities in English language classrooms as a means by which student written fluency may be improved.

Improving English Speaking Fluency: The Role of Six Factors

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Gholamhossein Shahini

2017-12-01

Full Text Available This qualitative study, using an open interview, set out to investigate the roles six factors, including age, university education, teachers of English Language institutes, teaching English, dictionary, and note-taking, played in improving English speaking fluency of seventeen fluent Iranian EFL speakers. The participants were chosen purposefully based on the speaking scale of Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFRL. The findings indicated that early age had a great impact on the participants’ speaking fluency. They mentioned that they could not pick up fluency if they had started learning English at older ages. Moreover, university education had no effect on enhancing their fluency. They stated that not having enough opportunities to speak English in classrooms, being exposed to wrong amounts of input from their classmates or even from some university instructors, having no access to English native speakers in English Language Departments, professors’ talking in native language out of classes, in their offices or even sometimes in classes all led to their losing motivation after entering the university. In contrast, teachers in English language institutes had a supportive role in increasing the participants’ English learning. Although two participants quit teaching English since it had a negative influence on their speaking, it had a positive impact on improving speaking ability of the rest. And finally, fruitful strategies were suggested on how to use dictionaries and note-takings.

Transcranial direct current stimulation over left inferior frontal cortex improves speech fluency in adults who stutter.

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Chesters, Jennifer; Möttönen, Riikka; Watkins, Kate E

2018-04-01

See Crinion (doi:10.1093/brain/awy075) for a scientific commentary on this article.Stuttering is a neurodevelopmental condition affecting 5% of children, and persisting in 1% of adults. Promoting lasting fluency improvement in adults who stutter is a particular challenge. Novel interventions to improve outcomes are of value, therefore. Previous work in patients with acquired motor and language disorders reported enhanced benefits of behavioural therapies when paired with transcranial direct current stimulation. Here, we report the results of the first trial investigating whether transcranial direct current stimulation can improve speech fluency in adults who stutter. We predicted that applying anodal stimulation to the left inferior frontal cortex during speech production with temporary fluency inducers would result in longer-lasting fluency improvements. Thirty male adults who stutter completed a randomized, double-blind, controlled trial of anodal transcranial direct current stimulation over left inferior frontal cortex. Fifteen participants received 20 min of 1-mA stimulation on five consecutive days while speech fluency was temporarily induced using choral and metronome-timed speech. The other 15 participants received the same speech fluency intervention with sham stimulation. Speech fluency during reading and conversation was assessed at baseline, before and after the stimulation on each day of the 5-day intervention, and at 1 and 6 weeks after the end of the intervention. Anodal stimulation combined with speech fluency training significantly reduced the percentage of disfluent speech measured 1 week after the intervention compared with fluency intervention alone. At 6 weeks after the intervention, this improvement was maintained during reading but not during conversation. Outcome scores at both post-intervention time points on a clinical assessment tool (the Stuttering Severity Instrument, version 4) also showed significant improvement in the group receiving

The Role of Self-Regulated Learning Capacities in Iranian EFL Undergraduates’ Argumentative Writing Task Performance

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Ali Akbar Khomeijani Farahani

2017-09-01

Full Text Available The current study was an attempt to explore the relationship between Iranian EFL learners’ self-regulatory capacities and their argumentative writing task performance in order to analyze measures of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF. To this end, 44 Iranian EFL undergraduates majoring in English literature at the University of Tehran were recruited based on convenience sampling to participate in this study. Employing a correlational design, the participants were required to perform an argumentative writing task and complete the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire designed by Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, and McKeachie (1991. Pearson product moment correlation indicated a significant relationship between self-regulated learning and writing task performance in relation to CAF measures. In addition, the results of multiple regression showed that resource management strategies and value component predicted 56.9% of grammatical accuracy of writing task. It was also shown that resource management strategies, value, and expectancy components predicted 56.5% of lexical complexity of writing task. Lastly, cognitive and metacognitive strategies, expectancy, and value components predicted 55.2% of the fluency of writing task. The findings of this study informs EFL writing pedagogy and English language teachers and syllabus designers  with regard to the benefits of applying self-regulatory strategies in teaching and assessing writing.

The neural substrates of musical memory revealed by fMRI and two semantic tasks.

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Groussard, M; Rauchs, G; Landeau, B; Viader, F; Desgranges, B; Eustache, F; Platel, H

2010-12-01

Recognizing a musical excerpt without necessarily retrieving its title typically reflects the existence of a memory system dedicated to the retrieval of musical knowledge. The functional distinction between musical and verbal semantic memory has seldom been investigated. In this fMRI study, we directly compared the musical and verbal memory of 20 nonmusicians, using a congruence task involving automatic semantic retrieval and a familiarity task requiring more thorough semantic retrieval. In the former, participants had to access their semantic store to retrieve musical or verbal representations of melodies or expressions they heard, in order to decide whether these were then given the right ending or not. In the latter, they had to judge the level of familiarity of musical excerpts and expressions. Both tasks revealed activation of the left inferior frontal and posterior middle temporal cortices, suggesting that executive and selection processes are common to both verbal and musical retrievals. Distinct patterns of activation were observed within the left temporal cortex, with musical material mainly activating the superior temporal gyrus and verbal material the middle and inferior gyri. This cortical organization of musical and verbal semantic representations could explain clinical dissociations featuring selective disturbances for musical or verbal material. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Prefrontal activation during inhibitory control measured by near-infrared spectroscopy for differentiating between autism spectrum disorders and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in adults

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Ayaka Ishii-Takahashi

2014-01-01

Full Text Available The differential diagnosis of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD based solely on symptomatic and behavioral assessments can be difficult, even for experts. Thus, the development of a neuroimaging marker that differentiates ASDs from ADHD would be an important contribution to this field. We assessed the differences in prefrontal activation between adults with ASDs and ADHD using an entirely non-invasive and portable neuroimaging tool, near-infrared spectroscopy. This study included 21 drug-naïve adults with ASDs, 19 drug-naïve adults with ADHD, and 21 healthy subjects matched for age, sex, and IQ. Oxygenated hemoglobin concentration changes in the prefrontal cortex were assessed during a stop signal task and a verbal fluency task. During the stop signal task, compared to the control group, the ASDs group exhibited lower activation in a broad prefrontal area, whereas the ADHD group showed underactivation of the right premotor area, right presupplementary motor area, and bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortices. Significant differences were observed in the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex between the ASDs and ADHD groups during the stop signal task. The leave-one-out cross-validation method using mean oxygenated hemoglobin changes yielded a classification accuracy of 81.4% during inhibitory control. These results were task specific, as the brain activation pattern observed during the verbal fluency task did not differentiate the ASDs and ADHD groups significantly. This study therefore provides evidence of a difference in left ventrolateral prefrontal activation during inhibitory control between adults with ASDs and ADHD. Thus, near-infrared spectroscopy may be useful as an auxiliary tool for the differential diagnosis of such developmental disorders.

Effect of Musical Experience on Verbal Memory in Williams Syndrome: Evidence from a Novel Word Learning Task

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Martens, Marilee A.; Jungers, Melissa K.; Steele, Anita L.

2011-01-01

Williams syndrome (WS) is a neurogenetic developmental disorder characterized by an increased affinity for music, deficits in verbal memory, and atypical brain development. Music has been shown to improve verbal memory in typical individuals as well as those with learning difficulties, but no studies have examined this relationship in WS. The aim…

Reliability and Validity of Dual-Task Mobility Assessments in People with Chronic Stroke