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PubMed1992

Effects of listeners' and talkers' linguistic backgrounds on W-22 test performance.

The effects of listeners' linguistic backgrounds on their word recognition performance were investigated. Equivalent 50-item CID W-22 word lists were recorded in English by three (Turkish, East Indian, and American) talkers and presented to 27 normal-hearing listeners representing each of these language groups. The listeners' word recognition results were compared within and across groups. A linguistic analysis of the subjects' errors indicated that only the Turkish listeners' word recognition scores were influenced by the talkers' or their own linguistic background. The Turkish listeners performed best with the Turkish talker, while the East Indian and American listeners' scores were not significantly affected by the talkers' linguistic backgrounds. Generally, the findings were not clinically significant and indicate that linguistic background should not be problematic in the clinical evaluation of these subjects' word recognition abilities. However, because some listeners' perceptions of some consonants and vowels showed language background effects, listeners having less experience with English may not perform as well as these subjects, and precautions should be taken in scoring non-native English listeners' responses to word recognition tests.

Audiometry, Speech↗

PubMed1995

Polymorphism of palmar main line terminations as an indicator of relationships among Sardinian linguistic groups of males.

Palmar main line modal types were used to calculate distance coefficients between Sardinian linguistic groups of males. By using correlation matrix analyses of the coefficients, we then determined whether or not the dermatoglyphic traits could reliably identify the biological relationships on the basis of the linguistic backgrounds of these groups. With Sanghvi's (X2)1/2 and by using palmar main lines both singly and together, we calculated dermatoglyphic distance matrices. Mantel tests of matrix correspondence showed that, by using C and D lines singly or all palmar main lines together, statistical significance between dermatoglyphic and linguistic distances can be obtained, even when the effect of geography is removed; there is no statistically significant correspondence between geographic and dermatoglyphic distance matrices, even when the effect of language is removed. Considering the historical and linguistic background, the results obtained by means of the Mantel test procedure, and the present dermatoglyphic differences in Sardinian linguistic groups of males, we can hypothesize that these groups were already genetically differentiated before the Romance languages and their respective dialects developed.

Dermatoglyphics↗

PubMed2007

A formal test of linguistic and genetic coevolution in native Central and South America.

This paper investigates a mechanism of linguistic and genetic coevolution in Native Central and South America. This mechanism proposes that a process of population fissions, expansions into new territories, and isolation of ancestral and descendant groups will produce congruent language and gene trees. To evaluate this population fissions mechanism, we collected published mtDNA sequences for 1,381 individuals from 17 Native Central and South American populations. We then tested the hypothesis that three well-known language classifications also represented the genetic structure of these populations. We rejected the hypothesis for each language classification. Our tests revealed linguistic and genetic correspondence in several shallow branches common to each classification, but no linguistic and genetic correspondence in the deeper branches contained in two of the language classifications. We discuss the possible causes for the lack of congruence between linguistic and genetic structure in the region, and describe alternative mechanisms of linguistic and genetic correspondence and their predictions.

Cluster Analysis↗

PubMed2004

Redefining functional models of basal ganglia organization: role for the posteroventral pallidum in linguistic processing?

Traditionally the basal ganglia have been implicated in motor behavior, as they are involved in both the execution of automatic actions and the modification of ongoing actions in novel contexts. Corresponding to cognition, the role of the basal ganglia has not been defined as explicitly. Relative to linguistic processes, contemporary theories of subcortical participation in language have endorsed a role for the globus pallidus internus (GPi) in the control of lexical-semantic operations. However, attempts to empirically validate these postulates have been largely limited to neuropsychological investigations of verbal fluency abilities subsequent to pallidotomy. We evaluated the impact of bilateral posteroventral pallidotomy (BPVP) on language function across a range of general and high-level linguistic abilities, and validated/extended working theories of pallidal participation in language. Comprehensive linguistic profiles were compiled up to 1 month before and 3 months after BPVP in 6 subjects with Parkinson's disease (PD). Commensurate linguistic profiles were also gathered over a 3-month period for a nonsurgical control cohort of 16 subjects with PD and a group of 16 non-neurologically impaired controls (NC). Nonparametric between-groups comparisons were conducted and reliable change indices calculated, relative to baseline/3-month follow-up difference scores. Group-wise statistical comparisons between the three groups failed to reveal significant postoperative changes in language performance. Case-by-case data analysis relative to clinically consequential change indices revealed reliable alterations in performance across several language variables as a consequence of BPVP. These findings lend support to models of subcortical participation in language, which promote a role for the GPi in lexical-semantic manipulation mechanisms. Concomitant improvements and decrements in postoperative performance were interpreted within the context of additive and subtractive postlesional effects. Relative to parkinsonian cohorts, clinically reliable versus statistically significant changes on a case by case basis may provide the most accurate method of characterizing the way in which pathophysiologically divergent basal ganglia linguistic circuits respond to BPVP.

Aged↗

PubMed2003

Changes in corticospinal motor excitability induced by non-motor linguistic tasks.

The excitability of the corticospinal motor pathways to transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) can be differentially modulated by a variety of motor tasks. However, there is emerging evidence that linguistic tasks may alter excitability of the corticospinal motor pathways also. In this study we evaluated the effect of several movement-free, low-level linguistic processes involved in reading and writing on the excitability of the bilateral corticospinal motor pathways in a group of right-handed subjects. The study included two series of tasks, visual searching/matching and imaginal writing/drawing. The tasks were designed to roughly correspond with elemental aspects of the reading and writing, grapheme recognition and grapheme generation, respectively. Each task series included separate blocks with different task targets: letters, digits, semantically easy-to-code (i.e. geometric) shapes, and semantically hard-to-code shapes, as well as control blocks with no task. During task performance, TMS was delivered randomly over the hand area of either the left or right motor cortex and the modulation of the excitability of the corticospinal motor pathways was measured bilaterally through changes of the size of the motor-evoked potential (MEP) induced in the relaxed right and left first dorsal interosseous (FDI) muscles. We found that the size of the MEP in hand muscles increased during visual searching/matching tasks, particularly when targets were letters or geometric shapes, and the increase was significant for the dominant hand (left hemisphere) only. No such consistent effects were seen across subjects during imaginal tasks. This study provides evidence that even the performance of certain low-level linguistic tasks can modulate the excitability of the corticospinal motor pathways, particularly those originating from the left (dominant) hemisphere, despite the absence of overt motor activity. Moreover, in the light of the recently increased awareness of the role of "mirror neurons" in perception, the results suggest that activation of motor circuits used in generation of the written output may be an essential part of the perception of the written material as well. Understanding the patterns of task-dependent changes in excitability of the corticospinal motor pathways will provide insights into the organisation of central nervous system functional networks involved in linguistic processes, and may also be useful for future development of novel approaches to rehabilitation therapy of linguistic and motor functions.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Linguistic and cognitive ability of adults with Down syndrome and mental retardation of unknown etiology.

The linguistic and cognitive abilities of adults with Down syndrome were compared to those of adults with mental retardation of unknown etiology matched for mental and chronological age. Linguistic data consisted of verbal responses to an elicitation procedure that tested for forty-three different linguistic constructions. Cognitive tests measured simultaneous, successive, auditory, and visual processing. The adults with Down syndrome exhibited significantly poorer linguistic ability than the adults with mental retardation of unknown etiology. Though the two groups exhibited different cognitive profiles, differences in cognitive abilities could not account for the difference in linguistic ability.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1988

Hemispheric processing of affective and linguistic intonation contours in normal subjects.

In a previous study of the comprehension of linguistic prosody in brain-damaged subjects, S. R. Grant and W. O. Dingwall (1984. The role of the right hemisphere in processing linguistic prosody, presentation at the Academy of Aphasia, 1984) demonstrated that the right hemisphere (RH) of nonaphasic patients plays a prominent role in the processing of stress and intonation. The present study examines laterality for affective and linguistic prosody using the dichotic listening paradigm. Both types of prosody elicited a significant left ear advantage. This advantage was more pronounced for affective than for linguistic prosody. These findings strongly support previously documented evidence of RH involvement in the processing of affective prosody (R. G. Ley & M. P. Bryden, 1982. A dissociation of right and left hemispheric effects for recognizing emotional tone and verbal content, Brain and Cognition, 1, 3-9). They also provide support for the previously mentioned demonstration of RH involvement in the processing of linguistic intonation (S. Blumstein & W. E. Cooper, 1974. Hemispheric processing of intonation contours, Cortex, 10, 146-158; Grant & Dingwall, 1984).

Adult↗

PubMed2005

When English proposes what Greek presupposes: the cross-linguistic encoding of motion events.

How do we talk about events we perceive? And how tight is the connection between linguistic and non-linguistic representations of events? To address these questions, we experimentally compared motion descriptions produced by children and adults in two typologically distinct languages, Greek and English. Our findings confirm a well-known asymmetry between the two languages, such that English speakers are overall more likely to include manner of motion information than Greek speakers. However, mention of manner of motion in Greek speakers' descriptions increases significantly when manner is not inferable; by contrast, inferability of manner has no measurable effect on motion descriptions in English, where manner is already preferentially encoded. These results show that speakers actively monitor aspects of event structure, which do not find their way into linguistic descriptions. We conclude that, in regard to the differential encoding of path and manner, which has sometimes been offered as a prime example of the effects of language encoding on non-linguistic thought, surface linguistic encoding neither faithfully represents nor strongly constrains our mental representation of events.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

The semantics of space: integrating linguistic typology and cognitive neuroscience.

In the cognitive neuroscience literature on the distinction between categorical and coordinate spatial relations, it has often been observed that categorical spatial relations are referred to linguistically by words like English prepositions, many of which specify binary oppositions-e.g., above/below, left/right, on/off, in/out. However, the actual semantic content of English prepositions, and of comparable word classes in other languages, has not been carefully considered. This paper has three aims. The first and most important aim is to inform cognitive neuroscientists interested in spatial representation about relevant research on the kinds of categorical spatial relations that are encoded in the 6000+ languages of the world. Emphasis is placed on cross-linguistic similarities and differences involving deictic relations, topological relations, and projective relations, the last of which are organized around three distinct frames of reference--intrinsic, relative, and absolute. The second aim is to review what is currently known about the neuroanatomical correlates of linguistically encoded categorical spatial relations, with special focus on the left supramarginal and angular gyri, and to suggest ways in which cross-linguistic data can help guide future research in this area of inquiry. The third aim is to explore the interface between language and other mental systems, specifically by summarizing studies which suggest that although linguistic and perceptual/cognitive representations of space are at least partially distinct, language nevertheless has the power to bring about not only modifications of perceptual sensitivities but also adjustments of cognitive styles.

Cognition↗

PubMed1991

The influence of linguistic context on young children's understanding of homophonic words.

This study investigates young children's understanding of homophones in two different linguistic contexts. Research has shown that children interpret homophones according to their 'primary' sense even though this is inappropriate to the linguistic context. The present study investigates the influence of different contexts on their interpretations of homophones. A picture test, similar to the British Picture Vocabulary Scale (BPVS), was devised, depicting ten homophones in both their primary and secondary senses. Forty-eight children who were in matched pairs following the BPVS pre-test and whose ages ranged from three to six were asked to select the picture which showed the homophone, first when the homophone was in no linguistic context, and secondly following one of two conditions of the same story which differed according to the richness of context provided. Results showed that those children assigned to story B, the expanded version with full linguistic details and explanations of the words it contained, were more able to identify correctly the secondary meanings of the homophones intended than those children given story A, the unexpanded version. Analyses of variance showed both a significant age trend and a story-type effect. These results are interpreted as showing that the linguistic context is an important factor in young children's understanding of word meaning.

Attention↗

PubMed2005

Time course of linguistic information extraction from consecutive words during eye fixations in reading.

Sequential attention shift models of reading predict that an attended (typically fixated) word must be recognized before useful linguistic information can be obtained from the following (parafoveal) word. These models also predict that linguistic information is obtained from a parafoveal word immediately prior to a saccade toward it. To test these assumptions, sentences were constructed with a critical pretarget-target word sequence, and the temporal availability of the (parafoveal) target preview was manipulated while the pretarget word was fixated. Target viewing effects, examined as a function of prior target visibility, revealed that extraction of linguistic target information began 70-140 ms after the onset of pretarget viewing. Critically, acquisition of useful linguistic information from a target was not confined to the ending period of pretarget viewing. These results favor theoretical conceptions in which there is some temporal overlap in the linguistic processing of a fixated and parafoveally visible word during reading.

Attention↗

PubMed2003

Linguistic processing in idiopathic generalized epilepsy: an auditory event-related potential study.

PURPOSE: Auditory processing of increasing acoustic and linguistic complexity was assessed in children with idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGE) by using auditory event-related potentials (AERPs) as well as reaction time and performance accuracy. METHODS: Twenty-four children with IGE [12 with generalized tonic-clonic seizures (GTCSs), and 12 with absence seizures (ASs)] with average intelligence and age-appropriate scholastic skills, uniformly medicated with valproic acid (VPA), and 20 healthy controls, performed oddball discrimination tasks that consisted of the following stimuli: (a) pure tones; (b) nonmeaningful monosyllables that differed by their phonetic features (i.e., phonetic stimuli); and (c) meaningful monosyllabic words from two semantic categories (i.e., semantic stimuli). RESULTS: AERPs elicited by nonlinguistic stimuli were similar in healthy and epilepsy children, whereas those elicited by linguistic stimuli (i.e., phonetic and semantic) differed significantly in latency, amplitude, and scalp distribution. In children with GTCSs, phonetic and semantic processing were characterized by slower processing time, manifested by prolonged N2 and P3 latencies during phonetic processing, and prolongation of all AERPs latencies during semantic processing. In children with ASs, phonetic and semantic processing were characterized by increased allocation of attentional resources, manifested by enhanced N2 amplitudes. Semantic processing also was characterized by prolonged P3 latency. In both patient groups, processing of linguistic stimuli resulted in different patterns of brain-activity lateralization compared with that in healthy controls. Reaction time and performance accuracy did not differ among the study groups. CONCLUSIONS: AERPs exposed linguistic-processing deficits related to seizure type in children with IGE. Neurologic follow-up should therefore include evaluation of linguistic functions, and remedial intervention should be provided, accordingly.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

PubMed2004

Re-appraising contemporary theories of subcortical participation in language: proposing an interhemispheric regulatory function for the subthalamic nucleus (STN) in the mediation of high-level linguistic processes.

Apropos the basal ganglia, the dominant striatum and globus pallidus internus (GPi) have been hypothesized to represent integral components of subcortical language circuitry. Working subcortical language theories, however, have failed thus far to consider a role for the STN in the mediation of linguistic processes, a structure recently defined as the driving force of basal ganglia output. The aim of this research was to investigate the impact of surgically induced functional inhibition of the STN upon linguistic abilities, within the context of established models of basal ganglia participation in language. Two males with surgically induced'lesions'of the dominant and non-dominant dorsolateral STN, aimed at relieving Parkinsonian motor symptoms, served as experimental subjects. General and high-level language profiles were compiled for each subject up to 1 month prior to and 3 months following neurosurgery, within the drug-on state (i.e., when optimally medicated). Comparable post-operative alterations in linguistic performance were observed subsequent to surgically induced functional inhibition of the left and right STN. More specifically, higher proportions of reliable decline as opposed to improvement in post-operative performance were demonstrated by both subjects on complex language tasks, hypothesised to entail the interplay of cognitive-linguistic processes. The outcomes of the current research challenge unilateralised models of functional basal ganglia organisation with the proposal of a potential interhemispheric regulatory function for the STN in the mediation of high-level linguistic processes.

Aged↗

PubMed2004

Reappraising contemporary theories of subcortical participation in language: proposing an interhemispheric regulatory function for the subthalamic nucleus (STN) in the mediation of high-level linguistic processes.

Apropos the basal ganglia, the dominant striatum and globus pallidus internus (GPi) have been hypothesised to represent integral components of subcortical language circuitry. Working subcortical language theories, however, have failed thus far to consider a role for the STN in the mediation of linguistic processes, a structure recently defined as the driving force of basal ganglia output. The aim of this research was to investigate the impact of surgically induced functional inhibition of the STN upon linguistic abilities, within the context of established models of basal ganglia participation in language. Two males with surgically induced 'lesions' of the dominant and non-dominant dorsolateral STN, aimed at relieving Parkinsonian motor symptoms, served as experimental subjects. General and high-level language profiles were compiled for each subject up to 1 month prior to and 3 months following neurosurgery, within the drug-on state (i.e., when optimally medicated). Comparable post-operative alterations in linguistic performance were observed subsequent to surgically induced functional inhibition of the left and right STN. More specifically, higher proportions of reliable decline as opposed to improvement in post-operative performance were demonstrated by both subjects on complex language tasks, hypothesised to entail the interplay of cognitive-linguistic processes. The outcomes of the current research challenge unilateralised models of functional basal ganglia organisation with the proposal of a potential interhemispheric regulatory function for the STN in the mediation of high-level linguistic processes.

Aged↗

PubMed1996

Lack of biological significance in the 'linguistic features' of noncoding DNA--a quantitative analysis.

Recently, the application of two statistical methods (related to Zipf's distribution and Shannon's redundancy), called 'linguistic' tests, to the primary structure of DNA sequences of living organisms has excited considerable interest. Of particular importance is the claim that noncoding DNA sequences in eukaryotes display specific 'linguistic' features, being reminiscent of natural languages. Furthermore, this implies that noncoding regions of DNA may carry some new, thus far unknown, biological information which is revealed by these tests. In this paper these claims are tested quantitatively. With the aid of computer simulations of natural DNA sequences, and by applying the same 'linguistic' tests to both natural and artificial sequences, we investigate in detail the reasons of the appearance of the claimed 'linguistic' features and the associated differences between coding and noncoding DNAs. The presented results show quantitatively that the 'linguistic' tests failed to reveal any new biological information in (noncoding or coding) DNA.

Base Composition↗

PubMed1975

Communicative behavior in schizophrenia. The relation of adaptive styles to kinetic and linguistic aspects of interview behavior.

Recent studies of formal kinetic and linguistic aspects of communication suggest that these may be important signposts of internal processes responsible for the regulation and organization of verbal thought. If so, the formal analysis of communication patterns of patients known to have difficulty in cognitive organization (chronic schizophrenics) should reveal kinetic and linguistic characteristics consistent with their level of adaptive cognitive functioning. In the present study, 16 chronic nonparanoid schizophrenic patients were video recorded during a clinical interview, and their kinetic and linguistic behavior was analyzed according to systems developed in our laboratory. Eight of these patients were chronic, isolated patients, classified by means of a scale for measuring proneness to future hospitalization, as extremely "prone" to rehospitalization, and eight were chronic, overtly oppositional patients, classified as "nonprone" to hospitalization. Prone patients are known to exhibit a relatively impoverished form of cognitive functioning, while nonprone patients exhibit more highly differentiated cognitive functioning. The major findings of this study revealed that the isolated prone patients could be distinguished from the nonprone patients, in their communicative behavior, by an increased utilization of the most repetitive and unpatterned stimulation of body parts, as well as the most simple form of linguistic narration of experience. The oppositional nonprone patients more often utilized circumscribed, patterned, and brief kinetic stimulation of body parts, as well as a form of language construction characterized by a complex conditional (i.e., causal, deductive, or purposive) framework for the expression of thought. In addition, social and affective components of the scale measuring hospital proneness were related to our formal kinetic and linguistic scoring categories. An explanation of these findings was offered based upon the well documented relationship observed in the literature between isolation and hyperarousal in chronic schizophrenia. That is, an attempt was made to integrate these findings with the notion that the schizophrenic disorder reflects an integrative deficit which is regulated by increasing the magnitude of proprioceptive feedback (and hence, arousal) through stereotyped repetitive motor activity.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed2006

The Gagauz, a linguistic enclave, are not a genetic isolate.

The Gagauz are a Turkic-speaking group that migrated from Turkey to their present location in the southern part of the Republic of Moldova about 150 years ago. Surrounded by Indo-European-speaking populations, they thus form a linguistic enclave, which raises the following question: to what extent have they remained in genetic isolation from their geographic neighbours? Analyses of mtDNA and Y chromosome variation indicate that despite their linguistic differences, the Gagauz have admixed extensively with neighbouring groups. Our data suggest that there has been more mtDNA than Y chromosome admixture, in keeping with the patrilocal nature of these groups. Moreover, when compared with another linguistic enclave, the Kalmyks there appears to be a correlation between the amount of genetic admixture and the amount of linguistic influence that these two linguistic enclaves have experienced from neighbouring groups.

Chromosomes, Human, Y↗

PubMed2004

Linguistic styles and complementarities in analyzing character.

This paper discusses and illustrates some technical implications of D. Liberman's contributions to character analysis. Psychoanalysis is an extended conversation, and character structure is expressed linguistically as part of an interactive linguistic field. Liberman's notions of linguistic styles and communicative interaction define a unique analytic surface from which to examine the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic aspects of character. The presence of a rigid and defensive linguistic style reflects resistance and communicative impasse within the transference and countertransference matrix. A fully interactive communicative experience integrates all aspects of the conversation and allows both participants to take part in a shared semantic field, the precondition to the generation of new meanings. Liberman suggests responding to miscommunication by means of a methodical linguistic attitude. Various such complementary responses are explored through several vignettes, with a particular focus on the interplay of the epic and narrative modes.

Character↗