Biomedical subjects

Miriam Faust

Publications and source records attributed to Miriam Faust.

10 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Categorization and affect: evidence for intra-hemispheric interactions.

Both emotional reactivity and categorization have long been studied within the framework of hemispheric asymmetry. However, little attempt has been made to integrate both research areas using any form of neuropsychological research, despite behavioral data suggesting a consistent relationship between affective and categorization processes. The primary goal of the current study was to examine the possibility of a laterally mediated interaction between emotional reactivity and the cognitive process of categorization. Using a split visual fields categorization task combined with affect inducing procedures, we hypothesized that the relationship between state affect and categorization would be dependent on the nature of state affect and on the hemisphere targeted. Results offered support for this hypothesis, showing that state affect related changes in categorization appeared only in the hemisphere commonly associated with both a specific affective state and categorization strategy employed. Findings are discussed in terms of possible evidence for a hemispheric arousal effect underlying the relationship between affect and categorization.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

Evidence for ocular motor deficits in developmental dyslexia: application of the double-step paradigm.

PURPOSE: Dyslexia is a language-based learning disability characterized by difficulties with reading, spelling, and writing. Persons with dyslexia often have deficits in processing rapid temporal sensory information. There is also evidence of sensorimotor deficits in persons with dyslexia. Whether these deficits include ocular motor problems is still an open question. Some previous studies have shown an increased saccadic latency in dyslexics, whereas others have not reproduced this finding. The purpose of the present study was to investigate saccadic latency in young adults with dyslexia during the double-step paradigm, a task that requires rapid sequential visual information processing and saccade generation. The study hypothesis was that dyslexics have a longer saccadic latency in the second orthogonal saccade, a task that nondyslexics parallel process and perform rapidly. METHODS: Eight students with dyslexia and eight age-matched control subjects participated in the study. Their eye movements were monitored with the scleral search coil technique in simple saccade trials and in the double-step paradigm. The second saccade was either orthogonal or colinear to the first. Intersaccadic interval and latency were calculated for the second saccade. RESULTS: No difference in saccadic latency was found for colinear second saccades; however, dyslexics had significantly longer latencies for orthogonal second saccades. This included a subset of subjects who had longer latencies for orthogonal than for colinear saccades. CONCLUSIONS: The findings indicate that under certain conditions, when the demand for rapid visual information processing is high and a rapid saccade sequence is required, some persons with dyslexia show ocular motor deficits manifested by longer saccadic latencies.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

The effects of multiple script priming on word recognition by the two cerebral hemispheres: Implications for discourse processing.

The present study examined left (LH) and right (RH) hemisphere involvement in discourse processing by testing the ability of each hemisphere to use world knowledge in the form of script contexts for word recognition. Participants made lexical decisions to laterally presented target words preceded by centrally presented script primes (four sentences describing common situations). To examine the maintenance of script information across intervening text, there were six types of primes. These consisted of either single scripts or combinations of two different scripts: (1) a related script, (2) an unrelated script, (3) a related script+a neutral "filler," (4) a related script+an unrelated script, (5) an unrelated script+a related script, and (6) a neutral baseline condition. Results indicated that in the LH, only related scripts or related scripts preceded by unrelated scripts facilitated target word recognition. In contrast, the RH gained significant facilitation from all combinations of script primes, including related scripts followed by either filler materials or unrelated scripts. These results are consistent with the theory that the RH contributes in a critical way to discourse comprehension by maintaining widespread meaning activation for an extended period. This unique ability of the RH may be especially important for integrative processes needed to achieve global coherence during discourse processing.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Sentence priming effects in the two cerebral hemispheres: influences of lexical relatedness, word order, and sentence anomaly.

The present study examined lexical, syntactic and semantic message-level contributions to sentence priming in the left (LH) and right (RH) hemispheres. Participants made lexical decisions to laterally presented target words preceded by congruent, incongruent, syntactic, random and neutral incomplete sentences that either contained or did not contain a lexical associate of the target. In the LH, congruent associated sentences facilitated, and incongruent associated sentences inhibited, target word recognition extensively. A similar pattern, but attenuated, was found for the RH. In both the LH and RH, random associated sentences benefited word target recognition very moderately. Syntactic associated sentence primes that contain word-level information embedded in a meaningless message provided the condition in which the RH was benefited but the LH was not. The asymmetry of sentence type context effects in the LH and RH suggests some important differences in message-level processes available to each hemisphere.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2003

Naming difficulties in adolescents with dyslexia: application of the tip-of-the-tongue paradigm.

The present study used the "tip-of-the-tongue" (TOT) experimental paradigm in a picture-naming task to explore the naming deficits of adolescents with dyslexia. As compared with a control group of typically developing readers, the adolescents with dyslexia had fewer correct responses and more TOT responses. When they failed to retrieve a target word, the adolescents with dyslexia had more phonological substitutions and benefited less from a phonological cue. However, both groups did not differ in the amount of semantic substitutions and supplied the same amount and kind of partial semantic information on the missing target word. These findings suggest that adolescents with dyslexia have significant naming difficulties that seem to arise because of difficulty in accessing the phonological word forms after the corresponding abstract lexical representation has been successfully accessed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2003

Semantically convergent and semantically divergent priming in the cerebral hemispheres: lexical decision and semantic judgment.

The effects of semantically divergent and semantically convergent priming on the processing of lexical ambiguity by the two cerebral hemispheres were examined in two visual hemifield experiments. The experiments investigated the ability of the right hemisphere (RH) and the left hemisphere (LH) to summate activation from two single word primes followed by a laterally presented ambiguous target word. In a lexical decision task (experiment 1), the two priming words were either both related to the dominant meaning of the target (new, fresh-NOVEL), or to the subordinate meaning (story, book-NOVEL), or to one dominant and one subordinate meaning (new, story-NOVEL). Results indicated that the LH benefited most from semantically convergent primes that converged onto the dominant meaning of the ambiguous target word, whereas the RH benefited most from semantically mixed (divergent) primes, that diverge on alternate meanings of the ambiguous target word. We used the same stimuli in a semantic relatedness judgment task (experiment 2), and found that the facilitation in the RH was significantly larger when the primes were mixed than when both primes converged on a single (i.e. either dominant or subordinate) meaning of the to-be-presented target word. In contrast, the only facilitation found in the LH was when the two primes were associated with a single meaning (either dominant or subordinate) of the to-be-presented target word. When the primes were mixed, there was no facilitation in the LH. These results support previous findings indicating that during word recognition, the RH activates a broader range of related meanings than the LH, including alternate meanings of ambiguous words. Thus, by summating activation for seemingly incongruous elements, the RH may be critically involved in at least one important component of verbal creativity.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2002

Effects of sentential context on the processing of unambiguous words by the two cerebral hemispheres.

The effect of sentence context on the processing of different aspects of meaning of unambiguous nouns by the two cerebral hemispheres was examined. Participants performed a lexical decision task on target words following two primes, an unambiguous noun preceded by an incomplete sentence. Priming sentences were consistent with either the dominant or the subordinate aspect of meaning of their final unambiguous word. Short and long SOAs were used. A principal finding of this study was that, when compared to unrelated aspects of meaning, for both the short and the long SOAs, the dominant and subordinate aspects of meaning of the unambiguous words were activated regardless of context in both hemispheres. However, the activation of the subordinate aspect of meaning of unambiguous words appears to be more sensitive to sentential context, especially when the unambiguous word is being processed by the left hemisphere.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Priming summation in the cerebral hemispheres: evidence from semantically convergent and semantically divergent primes.

The ability to activate and to maintain a large and relatively undifferentiated semantic field has been thought to be an important component of lexical semantic processing by the right hemisphere (RH). An implication of this unique propensity of the RH was examined in the present study that included two divided visual field priming experiments with SOAs of 800 and 2500 ms. The experiments investigated the ability of the RH and the left hemisphere (LH) to summate activation from multiple primes followed by a laterally presented ambiguous target word. The priming words either converged onto the same semantic representation (i.e. all three words related to either the dominant or to the subordinate meaning of the target) or diverged onto distinct semantic representations (i.e. two words related to the dominant and one to the subordinate meaning of the target, or vice versa). Results indicated that for either an 800 or 2500 ms stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) the LH benefited most from three semantically convergent primes that converged onto the dominant meaning of the ambiguous target word. There was no facilitation when three subordinate primes preceded the target. When the primes diverged onto different meanings, there was significant facilitation for the 800 ms SOA only. In contrast, with an 800 ms SOA, the RH benefited only from semantically divergent primes, that diverged onto alternate meanings of the ambiguous target word. With a 2500 ms SOA, the RH benefited from all combinations of primes. The discussion focuses on the implications for language processing of the differences between the two hemispheres in the scope and temporal pattern of the multiple prime effect.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

A comparison of care consumer and care provider perspectives on the quality of life of persons with persistent and severe psychiatric disabilities.

Agreement on care consumer quality of life (QOL) in different life domains between persons with a psychiatric disability and their care providers was examined. The former persons tended to report higher QOL than their care providers and care providers and care consumers evinced limited agreement on actual care consumers' QOL and on the substance of care consumer QOL Care providers' confidence in their judgment of care consumer QOL, but not duration of care provider-care consumer contact, was associated with more care provider-care consumer agreement. Thus, ways of increasing care providers' understanding of care consumers' perceptions of problems and goals should be investigated.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Naming difficulties in children with dyslexia: application of the tip-of-the-tongue paradigm.

The present study used the tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) experimental paradigm in a picture naming task to explore the source of the naming deficits of children with dyslexia. Compared with a control group of typically developing readers, the children with dyslexia showed fewer correct responses and spontaneous recalls, more don't know (DK) and TOT responses, and less accurate feeling of knowing (FOK) judgments. When they failed to retrieve a target word, the children with dyslexia did not differ from the control group in the partial semantic information they provided, but they gave less valid and more invalid partial phonological information. The children with dyslexia also benefited less from phonological cues. The phonologically related responses of the children with dyslexia elicited during the administration of the TOT procedure were related to their performance on a phonological awareness test. These findings suggest that the naming problems of children with dyslexia arise because of their difficulty in accessing the phonological word forms after the corresponding abstract lexical representation has been successfully accessed. The results are discussed in relation to the claim that two-stage models of naming can be profitably used in the early identification and treatment of reading disabilities.

Anomia↗