Biomedical subjects

Vasiliki Folia

Publications and source records attributed to Vasiliki Folia.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Lexical processing in illiteracy: effect of literacy or education?

Difficulties in phonological processing in illiterates have been attributed to their limited phonological awareness, a consequence of their lack of literacy. We sought to explore the potential influence of education on auditory lexical processing above and beyond literacy per se. In order to achieve this goal, we compared a lexical decision making paradigm with a repetition paradigm using words and pseudo-words. We based this choice of tasks on previous research, which has shown that pseudo-word repetition is dependent on the phonological loop; such studies have thus demonstrated a literacy effect on repetition. Instead, lexical decision making is known to depend on the size of one's vocabulary, which is influenced by the level of education attained. Our sample comprised three groups: illiterate no education, literate/low education and literate/high education, individuals. The pattern of our findings confirmed that literacy has an effect on the capacity of the phonological loop, as our illiterate group alone had difficulty with repetition, as compared with both literate/educated groups. Also, our findings suggested an education effect on lexical decision making, as we found a gradation in the performance of the three groups. Therefore, we succeeded in dissecting the effect of literacy and education on auditory lexical processing through the application and comparison of two simple paradigms.

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PubMed2004

Semantic and phonological processing in illiteracy.

Researchers of cognitive processing in illiteracy have proposed that the acquisition of literacy modifies the functional organization of the brain. They have suggested that, while illiterate individuals have access only to innate semantic processing skills, those who have learned the correspondence between graphemes and phonemes have several mechanisms available to them through which to process oral language. We conducted 2 experiments to verify that suggestion with respect to language processing, and to elucidate further the differences between literate and illiterate individuals in the cognitive strategies used to process oral language, as well as hemispheric specialization for these processes. Our findings suggest that semantic processing strategies are qualitatively the same in literates and illiterates, despite the fact that overall performance is augmented by increased education. In contrast, explicit processing of oral information based on phonological characteristics appears to be qualitatively different between literates and illiterates: effective strategies in the processing of phonological information depend upon having had a formal education, regardless of the level of education. We also confirmed the differential abilities needed for the processing of semantic and phonological information and related them to hemisphere-specific processing.

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PubMed2003

Assessment of memory skills in illiterates: strategy differences or test artifact?

Previous studies have reported that illiterates perform more poorly than literates on a variety of neuropsychological measures. We investigated the hypothesis that putative memory deficits in illiterates are an artifact of the assessment tools used rather than a reflection of an 'underdeveloped' ability. In order to accomplish this, we designed two tests, a word list learning test and an object learning test. The illiterate group performed more poorly than semiliterate and literate groups on most variables of the word list learning test, but only on delayed recall and semantic clustering on the object learning test. Our findings suggest that poor memory performance among illiterates can be attributed both to the nature of the task, as well as to the use of different cognitive mechanisms to recall learned information. Presumably, formal education may enhance the innate ability of learning through training individuals in efficient learning and retrieval strategies. We emphasize the importance of developing and using ecologically valid neuropsychological tests to assess illiterate individuals.

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