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Biomedical subjects

H Gardner

Publications and source records attributed to H Gardner.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1992

Story processing in right-hemisphere brain-damaged patients.

The understanding of stories requires sensitivity to structural aspects of narrative, the emotional content conveyed by the narrative, and the interaction between structural and emotional facets of the story. Right-hemisphere-damaged (RHD) and normal control subjects performed a number of different analytic tasks which probed their competence at story comprehension. Results revealed that RHD subjects perform at a level comparable to that of normal controls with stories that follow a canonical form and that they show few difficulties with structural aspects of narrative. Contrary to expectation, they are strongly influenced by the "interest" level of a story and by other factors that tap emotional sensitivity. Findings are discussed in terms of the processing and arousal mechanisms which may give rise to the observed pattern of difficulties in RHD patients.

Aged↗
PubMed1992

Sensitivity to conversational deviance in right-hemisphere-damaged patients.

To participate meaningfully in conversation, speakers must be sensitive to statements which advance and those which block the direction of a discourse. The effect of right-hemisphere damage (RHD) on sensitivity to conversational advancers and blockers was investigated by asking subjects to interpret normal conversations and conversations which were blocked by violations of Gricean maxims: specifically, tangential and redundant statements. Results indicate that RHD patients function normally in canonical, directed conversation. However, they have difficulty interpreting and judging the effect of blocking statements, particularly with regard to tangentiality. The results are discussed in terms of a mental model of directed conversation which incorporates both structural and affective components.

Brain↗
PubMed1992

Influence of testicular carcinoma on ipsilateral spermatogenesis.

A histological review of radical orchiectomy specimens was performed to assess the impact of testicular cancer on spermatogenesis. Slides from 28 patients with testicular cancer were available for review, consisting of 14 pure seminomas, 12 embryonal carcinomas and 2 mixed tumors. For each specimen tubules adjacent (less than 3 mm.) to the tumor and distant (more than 3 mm.) from the tumor were evaluated. This study indicates that marked impairment of ipsilateral spermatogenesis is associated with testicular carcinoma, particularly in the vicinity of the tumor. The quality of distant spermatogenesis appears to be influenced by tumor type and not by elevation of known serum tumor markers, such as human chorionic gonadotropin and alpha-fetoprotein, nor by the presence of carcinoma in situ.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Mass sociogenic illness in a youth center.

In July, 1989, 63 (42%) of 150 children ages 4-14 years attending an outreach program at a youth center in Florida, but no employees, developed acute and rapidly resolving upper gastrointestinal symptoms 2 to 40 minutes after a prepackaged lunch. All ill children were sent to 3 local hospital emergency departments for evaluation. However, clinical evaluation was normal for all. Of 102 children who ate any prepackaged foods, 48 (47%) became ill compared to 1/19 (5%) for children who did not eat (rate ratio [RR] = 8.9; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.3-60.9). No employees ate any of the food items served. Consumption of sandwiches was associated with a moderate increased risk of illness (RR = 1.7, 95% CI: 1.0-2.9). The attack rate did not differ by age, but was greater for girls (39/56, 70%) than for boys (9/46, 20%; [RR = 3.6, 95% CI: 1.9-6.6]). Over 3,000 similar prepackaged meals from the same caterer were served in the same area of Florida that day. An inquiry in the area documented absence of similar symptoms elsewhere. Unopened meal samples tested negative for pesticide residues, heavy metals, staphylococcal toxin, or Bacillus cereus. We diagnosed the outbreak as mass sociogenic illness. Complaints of a bad tasting sandwich by the index case and possible staff anxiety about food poisoning may have contributed to the development of the outbreak.

Child↗
PubMed1991

DNA alterations and enzyme activities in Japanese medaka (Oryzias latipes) exposed to diethylnitrosamine.

Several molecular and biochemical markers of genotoxicity were adapted for measurement in the medaka, and were used to describe the effects of treatment of the organism with diethylnitrosamine (DEN). DEN treatment inhibited the activity of a detoxication enzyme activity (ethoxyresorufin-O-deethylase) and increased the activity of glutathione-S-transferase. This pattern of response has been described in preneoplastic rodent cells. No O6-ethyl guanine adducts were detected, and a slight, but statistically significant, increase in DNA strand breaks was observed. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that prolonged exposure to high levels of DEN induced alkyltransferase activity which enzymatically removes any O6-ethyl guanine adducts but does not result in strand breaks or hypomethylation of the DNA such as might be expected from excision repair of chemically modified DNA.

Animals↗
PubMed1990

Appreciation of metaphoric alternative word meanings by left and right brain-damaged patients.

Appreciation of metaphoric and nonmetaphoric alternative word meanings was assessed in 19 aphasic, left (LHD) and 15 non-aphasic, right (RHD) hemisphere brain-damaged stroke patients. With the one exception in the aphasic group, all patients were male. In an unspeeded sorting task, subjects responded on the basis of less frequent, alternative meanings of polysemous target words. Targets were either polysemous adjectives (e.g. "warm") having metaphoric alternative meanings (loving) or polysemous nouns (e.g., "pen") having non-metaphoric alternative meanings (writing implement, cage). Both patient groups performed worse overall than a group of nonbrain-damaged control subjects. Relative to the RHD patients, LHD patients showed a spared appreciation of metaphoric alternative meanings. In addition, LHD, but not RHD, patients performed better on metaphoric adjective trials when there was high similarity between a word's dominant and (metaphoric) alternative meaning. The results suggest a pervasive insensitivity of RHD patients to alternative interpretations of linguistic units, and a special role for the intact right hemisphere in lexical-semantic processes related to metaphor comprehension.

Aged↗
PubMed1990

The effects of right hemisphere damage on the pragmatic interpretation of conversational remarks.

The ability to interpret conversational utterances was assessed in a group of 12 male patients with unilateral right hemisphere brain damage (RHD) and 12 non-brain-damaged, age-matched male control subjects. Subjects listened to short vignettes which described both the affective tone of the relationship between a speaker and an actor, and the actor's performance on a task. Each vignette concluded with the speaker characterizing the actor's performance. In half of the items, the speaker's utterance was literally true; in the other half, the utterance was literally false and invited a nonliteral interpretation. Results showed no appreciable differences in the performance of control subjects and RHD patients when interpreting literally true utterances. In contrast, the two groups differed reliably when interpreting the pragmatic intent of nonliteral utterances: Control subjects used information about both the actor's performance and the speaker-actor relationship, while RHD patients demonstrated difficulty in using the information about the speaker-actor relationship. Results have implications for patients' understanding of essential elements of conversations, such as characters' internal states and their intentions in employing different forms of literal and nonliteral language.

Affect↗
PubMed1990

Beyond scripts: a note on the capacity of right hemisphere-damaged patients to process social and emotional content.

Individuals with right hemisphere damage (RHD) can comprehend simple scripts but have difficulties understanding more complex forms of discourse such as stories and jokes. This study sought to discover the point beyond simple scripts at which such patients begin to experience difficulties. Three-sentence, script-like vignettes which described everyday situations were created along two major dimensions: a social dimension (reflecting presence or absence of interactions between characters); and an emotional dimension (reflecting a positive, negative, or neutral emotion felt by a protagonist in the situation). Right hemisphere-damaged patients were asked to provide emotional characterizations of, and continuations to, these situational vignettes. Results indicated that individuals with right hemisphere damage were more likely than control subjects to attribute a positive emotional state to a character in a neutral situation. In other respects, there were no significant differences between RHD subjects and controls, although the RHD subjects made significantly more factual errors in their continuations than did control subjects.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Appreciation of indirect requests by left- and right-brain-damaged patients: the effects of verbal context and conventionality of wording.

Unilaterally right (RHD)- and left (LHD)-hemisphere-damaged patients were tested on their ability to discern the correct, nonliteral interpretation of indirect requests (e.g., "Can you open the door?") embedded in short vignettes and presented without any pictorial support. Each stimulus vignette incorporated two verbal cues--context and conventionality of form--designed to influence interpretations of a critical utterance located at the end of each vignette. Contexts were biased to encourage either the direct, literal reading of critical utterances as a question, or the indirect meaning of the utterance as a request for action. The critical utterances themselves were either high in conventionality (e.g., "Can you ...?") which encouraged an indirect interpretation, or low in conventionality (e.g., "Is it possible for you to ...?") which encouraged a direct interpretation. Results indicated that RHD patients were significantly impaired, relative to controls, in their ability to make judgments based on contextual information. RHD patients performed comparably to the aphasic, LHD group in the use of both context and conventionality. These results replicate earlier findings of disrupted indirect request comprehension by RHD patients tested in pictorially supported paradigms.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

The case against the case against group studies.

We challenge the position that only the analysis of single patients can allow us to infer normal function from impaired performance. We claim that the focus on group vs. single case studies is unprofitable and that a more useful question is how best to form abstractions of relevance to cognitive theory. In this context, we consider issues concerning the category of "agrammatism."

Aphasia↗
PubMed1989

An investigation of maternal interaction with phonologically disordered children as compared to two groups of normally developing children.

This study looked at the verbal interaction between mothers and their offspring with phonological disorders (age 3;6-5;1 years) who otherwise had language development within normal limits. This interaction was compared to two groups of mothers with children who were developing all aspects of language normally. There were eight subjects in each of the three groups: the phonologically disordered children (PDC), a group matched for age and language ability (AMG) and a group of children under 3 years (YCG) with age appropriate phonological development. Audio tapes were transcribed and percentage frequencies of certain verbal behaviours in both adult and child were calculated. The mother-child interaction of the phonologically disordered group was found to differ significantly from that of the peer group and more closely to resemble that of the younger normally developing children and their mothers.

Child, Preschool↗
PubMed1988

Isolation and characterization of a variant of human papillomavirus type 11 from a nasal inverting (Schneiderian) papilloma.

We have previously reported the presence of a variant of human papillomavirus (HPV) type 11 in a nasal inverting papilloma [Respler et al., 1987]. In the present study, we have cloned molecularly the DNA of this variant at its unique restriction enzyme Bam HI site into lambda BF101 phage. Restriction enzyme mapping and DNA sequencing revealed that the genome of this virus contained an extra 531 base pair (bp) which was the repeat of most of the noncoding region (ncr) of HPV 11. Insertion of transcriptional control elements, including the repeated sequence, in front of the chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) gene resulted in a 5- to 30-fold increase in expression in transfected cells, as compared to the constructs containing a single ncr of HPV 11. This increased expression was due to enhanced levels of CAT RNA the synthesis of which is initiated by the viral promoter element.

Acetyltransferases↗
PubMed1987

Script knowledge in right hemisphere-damaged and in normal elderly adults.

Right hemisphere brain-damaged (RHD) patients and healthy elderly and younger control subjects were tested on a battery of tasks designed to probe their script knowledge. More specifically, their ability to access and organize script information was assessed under conditions that varied in information-processing demands. For this purpose, two types of script tasks were employed: free response tasks, for which subjects had to structure their own responses, and constrained response tasks, in which subjects had to choose the better of two possible responses. All RHD patients tested had shown impairments on other narrative tasks. Subjects were asked to produce the sequences of steps which comprise two common activities and to provide continuations for segments of scripts (free-response tasks); they also were required to judge script element membership, temporal order, and relative importance (constrained-response tasks). The RHD patients and elderly and control subjects demonstrated a generally preserved knowledge of script information on all tasks. However, because of variability in the response style from the RHD patients and elderly subjects on free-response tasks, individual cases were examined. Several RHD patients' script productions were characterized by tangentiality while other patients showed a tendency to terminate their script productions prematurely. Four of ten elderly subjects produced highly personalized scripts. The relation of performance on these tasks to other documented narrative impairments is considered.

Aged↗