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Biomedical subjects

J Rönnberg

Publications and source records attributed to J Rönnberg.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1995

The role of emotionality and typicality in speechreading.

Two experiments were carried out to investigate how emotionality and typicality could influence speechreading performance. Typical and atypical sentences for a certain script, and emotional sentences (happy and sad content, presented with happy, sad or neutral facial expression) were shown without sound on a TV-screen. Two different scripts (restaurant and doctor) were used. In Experiment 1, hearing-impaired subjects participated and in Experiment 2, normal-hearing subjects participated. Experiment 2 also evaluated the effects of tactile information. The results from both experiments showed that typical restaurant sentences were the easiest to speechread of all sentence-types, in line with script-theory (Abelson, 1981; Anderson, 1983; Bellezza & Bower, 1981; Nottenburg & Shoben, 1980; Yekovich & Walker, 1986). For the doctor script, sad sentences were better speechread than happy sentences, also according to script-theory. In addition, perception of emotional content was enhanced by tactile information. Generally, both the cognitive and emotional effects are script-dependent, suggesting important social constraints on speechreading accuracy.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

RASP: a system for the analysis of memory tasks.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a system for the analysis of memory tasks. The system involves four basic task dimensions, derived from an ecological analysis of memory functioning: Reproductivity (R), Acquisition (A), Sufficiency (S), and Productivity (P). Three studies are reported in which professional memory psychologists were asked to rate sets of standard laboratory and more ecologically relevant memory tasks in terms of the four RASP dimensions. In general, results implied independence across the two sets of tasks between the four dimensions. Interrater reliabilities were found to be modest to high. However, it was suggested that RASP best be used as a tool for understanding the meaningful relations that exist among dimensions within general sets or pools of tasks, for different classes of tasks, as well as for prototypical tasks. We argue that, especially when the relationship between RASP profiles for two particular tasks is crossvalidated by behavioral data, and conflict with assumptions about what memory systems or processes are involved, then there is a potential for conceptual refinement. This refinement could be attained either through an increased theoretical generalization, or through an increased theoretical precision. Based on obtained RASP information at the level of classes of tasks (e.g., episodic vs. semantic) as well as at a prototypical task level (e.g., word recall vs. prose recall), several intriguing memory phenomena are discussed. Finally, we suggest that RASP may serve as a tool for reducing the number of task-specific assumptions of what systems and processes mediate memory performance.

Humans↗
PubMed1995

CT assessment of subarachnoid haemorrhage. A comparison between different CT methods of grading subarachnoid haemorrhage.

A number of different CT classifications of subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) were applied to a consecutive series of 50 patients with aneurysmal SAH. The best correlation with delayed ischaemic deficits (DID) was obtained with a score formed by the sum of the individual cisternal grades except that of the cortical subarachnoid space. The findings emphasize the significance of the extent of the SAH, rather than the presence of a localized cisternal clot with regard to the development of DID.

Aneurysm, Ruptured↗
PubMed1994

Regional cerebral blood flow in sign language users.

Cerebral activation was compared during sign and spoken language comprehension. Nine hearing children of deaf parents were studied and the cerebral activation was measured by recordings of the regional cerebral blood flow. Comprehension of a complex material gave a bilateral activation of posterior temporal regions for both spoken and signed language. It seems that sign language activates the cortex in a way which is very similar to spoken language, when the listener watches the speaker. Cortical areas usually regarded to be important for spatial ability do not show enhanced activation during sign language perception.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Prediction accuracy of text recall: ease, effort and familiarity.

Prediction accuracy of text recall was studied in two experiments. Text characteristics (i.e., consistency and distinctiveness) were manipulated in Experiment 1, and familiarity with the reading-task in Experiment 2. The results were also analyzed and discussed in terms of easy processing (Experiment 1), and in terms of increased and more active processing (Experiment 2). Text characteristics did not affect prediction accuracy. However, being familiar with the reading-task led to good and long-lasting prediction accuracy. Thus, subjects reading a school-book text, instructed to learn the contents of it demonstrated reliable memory awareness, both for immediate recall and for delay of one week. It was also suggested that increased processing demands and active reading enhances prediction accuracy.

Achievement↗
PubMed1994

Subarachnoid blood on CT and memory dysfunctions in aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage.

Ninety patients with a previous subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) were given a set of memory tests comprising immediate free recall of words (indexing long-term memory, LTM, and short-term memory, STM), final free recall of words (indexing LTM), final cued recall of words (indexing LTM), and a digit span test (indexing working memory, WM). Patients with a large amount of blood on CT, carried out within 72 h of the bleed, showed LTM as well as STM dysfunction, whereas patients with a small amount of subarachnoid blood evidenced only STM dysfunction. Patients with the ruptured aneurysm located on the anterior cerebral artery, however, constituted an exception with dysfunction of both LTM and STM together with intact WM, independent of the amount of subarachnoid blood. Also, patients with internal carotid artery or middle cerebral artery aneurysms and large volume SAH displayed LTM dysfunction, but differed concerning STM, the former showing intact STM and the latter showing STM dysfunction. Thus, it appears, that the combined information from factors such as the amount of subarachnoid blood and the location of the ruptured aneurysm is of vital importance for explaining the different patterns of memory dysfunctions after SAH.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Internal speech functioning and speechreading in deafened and normal hearing adults.

The present study compared internal speech functioning in two groups of subjects: deafened and normal hearing adults. Internal speech functioning was assessed by means of either direct testing (i.e. rhyme-judgement tasks) or indirect testing (lexical access tests). No differences between the groups across tasks was obtained for speed. Neither was there any difference in accuracy level assessed by indirect tests. For direct testing the deafened group performed at a significantly lower level of accuracy. Accuracy was also correlated with the number of years that they had been deaf. It was concluded that one of the primary consequences of an acquired deafness is that the representational aspects of internal speech deteriorate over time, whereas the mechanical aspects remain relatively intact. Intercorrelations between accuracy level in direct testing and speechreading performance also suggest that speechreading ability declines. Clinical implications of the results are discussed.

Deafness↗
PubMed1993

The effects of background noise and working memory capacity on speechreading performance.

The present study was conducted to investigate the effects of background noise and working memory capacity on speechreading performance. The results displayed no differences in speechreading performance (i.e. on a word-test and on a sentence-test) due to background noise. When working memory capacity was correlated with speechreading, only one of the two tests of working memory capacity (i.e. the reading span task) was found to be related to speechreading performance. This relationship applies to both speechreading tests, but only to one specific background noise condition in the tests: meaningful noise. The results are discussed with respect to the demands of simultaneous storage and processing in working memory and how these demands apply to speech-based noise distractors. It was also concluded that although performance was similar across different background noise conditions, they apparently engage different components of the individual's cognitive system.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Vibrotactile support: initial effects on visual speech perception.

The study investigated the initial effects of the implementation of vibrotactile support on the individual's speech perception ability. Thirty-two subjects participated in the study; 16 with an acquired deafness and 16 with normal hearing. At a general level, the results indicated no immediate and direct improvement as a function of the implementation across all speech perception tests. However, when the subjects were divided into Skilled and Less Skilled groups, based on their performance in the visual condition of each test, it was found that the performance of the Skilled subjects deteriorated while that of the Less Skilled subjects improved when tactile information was provided in two conditions (word-discrimination and word-decoding conditions). It was concluded that tactile information interferes with Skilled subjects' automaticity of these functions. Furthermore, intercorrelations between discrimination and decoding tasks suggest that there are similarities between visually and tactilely supported speechreading in how they relate to sentence-based speechreading. Clinical implications of the results were discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Memory effects following carbamazepine monotherapy in patients with complex partial epilepsy.

To evaluate the memory effects of carbamazepine (CBZ) monotherapy, a relatively large computerized neuropsychological test battery, specially developed to assess the properties of different memory systems, was administered to a group of patients with epilepsy in a pre-test--post-test control group design. Consistent with previous findings, the results show that CBZ treatment does not induce any general important or consistent negative signs of memory dysfunction. However, the epilepsy group as such demonstrates a relative inability to carry out more complex working memory tasks and they are also slower in simple long-term memory access tasks. Finally, the detailed findings suggest that CBZ plasma concentration levels within the therapeutic range are highly and negatively associated with short-term recency, which is a novel finding.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Normal-hearing and hearing-impaired subjects' ability to just follow conversation in competing speech, reversed speech, and noise backgrounds.

The performance on a conversation-following task by 24 hearing-impaired persons was compared with that of 24 matched controls with normal hearing in the presence of three background noises: (a) speech-spectrum random noise, (b) a male voice, and (c) the male voice played in reverse. The subjects' task was to readjust the sound level of a female voice (signal), every time the signal voice was attenuated, to the subjective level at which it was just possible to understand what was being said. To assess the benefit of lipreading, half of the material was presented audiovisually and half auditorily only. It was predicted that background speech would have a greater masking effect than reversed speech, which would in turn have a lesser masking effect than random noise. It was predicted that hearing-impaired subjects would perform more poorly than the normal-hearing controls in a background of speech. The influence of lipreading was expected to be constant across groups and conditions. The results showed that the hearing-impaired subjects were equally affected by the three background noises and that normal-hearing persons were less affected by the background speech than by noise. The performance of the normal-hearing persons was superior to that of the hearing-impaired subjects. The prediction about lipreading was confirmed. The results were explained in terms of the reduced temporal resolution by the hearing-impaired subjects.

Audiometry↗
PubMed1992

Purposive behaviour in cognition and perception: considerations of awareness in memory.

The responses to the original article by Rönnberg (1990a) provoked interesting and thoughtful points of view that are covered by Gärling (1990), Hjelmquist (1990), Montgomery (1991), and Runeson (1990). These articles do not merely present a different outlook but also provide concepts that are certainly worthy of consideration and add more substance to the general topic under discussion. The purpose of this commentary is to seek an understanding of the ideas presented by the above authors within a synthesis of our views of current conceptualizations in cognition and perception. Each of the original criteria (Rönnberg, 1990a) will be treated in turn.

Animals↗
PubMed1992

The relationship between verbal ability and sentence-based speechreading.

Eighteen hearing-impaired subjects participated in the present study. The purpose was to investigate one general question: The nature of the relationship between verbal ability and speechreading. Verbal ability was assessed by two types of measure: a test of vocabulary size, and four tests of lexical access speed. The results demonstrated that lexical access speed was related to speechreading performance. Vocabulary size was not found to be directly related to the speechreading criterion; rather, its influence was in an indirect fashion via its relation to lexical access speed. It was concluded that lexical access speed could be used as a diagnostic tool, such that when an individual demonstrates lexical access that is unreasonably slow, it could be taken as an indication to suggest that rehabilitation programs should emphasize alternatives to speechreading. A general implication of the present results is that absence of relation between a predictor variable and the speechreading criterion does not necessarily imply absence of relation between the two. There is still a possibility that the predictor variable might be indirectly related to the speechreading criterion.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Tactiling: a usable support system for speechreading?

The purpose of this study was to find out whether deafened adults can take advantage of the extra information in speechreading given by the vibrational and motional patterns picked up by placing a hand on a speaker's throat and shoulder, and how valuable this tactile supplement is as a support system for speechreading. We have named this method--speechreading with tactile supplement--tactiling. Eight deafened adults participated in the study, conducted with a pre-test/post-test control group design. The experimental and the control groups took speechreading classes together. The experimental group received additional individual training in tactiling during six 1 h lessons. Both the experimental and the control groups were tested, before and after training, first by a familiar person and thereafter by an unfamiliar person. The results demonstrated two significant main effects. Tactiling is generally better than speechreading alone, and the results from the test given by the familiar speaker are better than with the unfamiliar speaker. The main effect of tactiling indicates that the method is worth pursuing as a communication system for the deafened adults. Possible reasons for the direct effect of tactiling are discussed, as well as modifications of this 'natural' device.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

Visual speech processing: word-decoding and word-discrimination related to sentence-based speechreading and hearing-impairment.

Two aspects of visual speech processing in speechreading (word decoding and word discrimination) were tested in a group of 24 normal hearing and a group of 20 hearing-impaired subjects. Word decoding and word discrimination performance were independent of factors related to the impairment, both in a quantitative and a qualitative sense. Decoding skill, but not discrimination skill, was associated with sentence-based speechreading. The results were interpreted such that, in order to represent a critical component process in sentence-based speechreading, the visual speech perception task must entail lexically induced processing as a task-demand. The theoretical status of the word decoding task as one operationalization of a speech decoding module was discussed (Fodor, 1983). An error analysis of performance in the word decoding/discrimination tasks suggested that the perception of heard stimuli, as well as the perception of lipped stimuli, were critically dependent on the same features; that is, the temporally initial phonetic segment of the word (cf. Marslen-Wilson, 1987). Implications for a theory of visual speech perception were discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

Script activation in lipreading.

In three experiments the roles of script, basic and low-level contexts in lipreading (Abbott et al., 1985) were studied. Three scripts were used: a restaurant, a railway station, and a clothing store. Presence or absence of script headers constituted a between-subjects factor. Basic and low-level context, as well as test-sentences (referring to basic and low-level of abstraction), were within-subjects factors. Also, different kinds of working memory tests were employed to assess potentially important information-processing skills for lipreading. The results show that (a) lipreaders benefit from a compatibility between context level and sentence type, (b) the directions of inferences were asymmetric such that the basic context prevented inferences at the low-level of abstraction, but not vice versa, (c) low-level context in general was most useful for skilled lipreaders in the script group, (d) skilled lipreaders in the non-script group took most advantage of basic level sentences, and (e) working memory capacity did not prove to be important for lipreading skill. Guessing and pure lipreading control experiments established that each of these potentially confounding factors only accounted for about 5% of the lipreading performance, and thus, can not explain the obtained interactive effects between visual information conveyed by lip movements and context. Theorizing departing from prototypicality vs. script accounts of inference-making was critically evaluated, and a predictive script activation mechanism, relevant to lipreading skill, was suggested.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

Contrasting subjective judgement and objective tests in the hearing-impaired.

The Hearing Performance Inventory (HPI, Giolas et al., 1979) was used to measure 21 moderately hearing-impaired persons' subjectively experienced problems in everyday listening. The HPI rating data show that the greatest problems are experienced on the dimensions 'understanding speech without visual cues', and 'perceived intensity' of sounds. 'Understanding speech with visual cues' has a high positive correlation with both 'social situation' and 'work situation' dimensions, whereas 'understanding speech without visual cues' correlates with 'social' and 'personal situation'. The correlations between the HPI and actual performance in the speechreading tests, and between the HPI and cognitive abilities that were assumed to be critical for speechreading ability, were also examined. It was found that vocabulary size, highly intercorrelated with guessing, was important to the 'social situation' dimension on the HPI. Guessing also constitutes an important cognitive predictor of speechreading skill. However, none of the HPI dimensions was directly related to objective communicative competence. Given the limitations of speechreading training, the data suggest that vocabulary and social skills should be focused on during communicative training.

Adult↗