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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

Memory mechanisms in the processing of words and word-like symbols.

Modern functional imaging techniques such as positron emission tomography (PET) provide the opportunity to examine in some detail the implementation of mental activities in the human brain. Using measurements of changes in local brain blood flow obtained with PET as a marker of changes in local neuronal activity we have examined the processing of single words and word-like symbols. These studies reveal the very distributed, modular nature of this implementation and provide some preliminary insights into the role of memory mechanisms in the process.

Brain Mapping

Specific word transfer as a measure of processing in the word-superiority paradigm.

Explanations of context effects in the Reicher-Wheeler task and the letter-identification task appeal to word-based processing, yet these tasks provide no explicit measure of word processing. An experiment is reported which was designed to investigate the use of transfer in the word-identification task as a measure of word-based processing in letter-identification tasks. It was found that encoding manipulations that determined whether a word-superiority effect was or was not found in a letter-identification task (e.g., Thompson & Massaro, 1973) also determined whether transfer was or was not found in a subsequent word-identification task. The results of the experiment are discussed in terms of the utility of using transfer experiments as converging evidence about the presence and/or absence of processes that cannot be directly measured in other experimental paradigms.

Adult

"On-screen" writing and composing: two years experience with Manuscript Manager, Apple II and IBM-PC versions.

The problems of the direct composition of a biomedical manuscript on a personal computer are discussed. Most word processing software is unsuitable because literature references, once stored, cannot be rearranged if major changes are necessary. These obstacles have been overcome in Manuscript Manager, a combination of word processing and database software. As it follows Council of Biology Editors and Vancouver rules, the printouts should be technically acceptable to most leading biomedical journals.

Humans

Orthographic depth and the interaction of visual and auditory processing in word recognition.

We studied the influence of word frequency and orthographic depth on the interaction of orthographic and phonetic information in word perception. Native speakers of English and Serbo-Croatian were presented with simultaneous printed and spoken verbal stimuli and had to decide whether they were equivalent. Decision reaction time was measured in three experimental conditions: Clear print and clear speech, degraded print and clear speech, and clear print and degraded speech. Within each language, the effects of visual and auditory degradation were measured, relative to the undegraded presentation. Both effects of degradation were much stronger in English than in Serbo-Croatian. Moreover, they were the same for high- and low-frequency words in both languages. These results can be accounted for by a parallel interactive processing model that assumes lateral connections between the orthographic and phonological systems at all of their levels. The structure of these lateral connections is independent of word frequency and is determined by the relationship between spelling and phonology in the language: simple isomorphic connections between graphemes and phonemes in Serbo-Croatian, but more complex, many-to-one, connections in English.

Form Perception

The effects of methylphenidate on levels of processing and laterality in children with attention deficit disorder.

Effects of stimulant medication (methylphenidate) on levels (feature, name, semantic) of word processing by the left and right hemisphere were assessed in 31 attention-deficit-disordered children. In a double-blind procedure, same-different decisions were made to tachistoscopically presented word pairs under medication and placebo. Analysis of manual response times failed to show any negative effects of medication. Feature decisions were faster than name decisions, which were faster than semantic decisions. Methylphenidate induced a right visual field advantage (left hemisphere) for the name decision, which was interpreted as a normalization effect. The results suggest that (1) methylphenidate may selectively improve the phonological level of word processing and (2) methylphenidate's favorable therapeutic effect is produced through inhibition of excessive right hemisphere activity in response to task demands that engage the left hemisphere.

Adolescent

A surgical pathology reporting and encoding system using industry-standard hardware and software.

I describe an efficient, inexpensive, industry-standard computer system that is designed for word processing of surgical pathology reports as well as encoding in Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine (SNOMED) and data storage. This system is capable of maintaining a large database of patient information with coded diagnoses. It is designed to be utilized with readily available stock computer hardware and software without significant customization or any additional programming. The hardware is easily purchased from and can be maintained by a retail, business-oriented computer store. The system described incorporates WordPerfect for word processing and the CAP/SNOMED system for diagnosis encoding and data storage and retrieval.

Humans

Effect of imagery ability on letter-level and word-level processing.

In a letter-identification task, subjects matched a probe letter to the initial letter of a subsequently presented probe word. We varied word frequency and predicted that the performance of vivid imagers would resemble that of typical young adults, whereas the performance of poor imagers would fall in between that of typical young adults and of older adults, or would simply resemble the performance of typical older adults (a linear decrease in reaction time [RT] with word frequency; see Allen & Madden, 1989). The in-between function for young and older adults combined predicts a dip in RT for very-high-frequency words compared to medium-high-, low-, and very-low-frequency words. As predicted, vivid imagers exhibited increased latencies for medium-high-frequency words relative to the other three word-frequency categories, whereas poor imagers exhibited a dip.

Adult

Kanji word reading process analysed by positron emission tomography.

Positron emission tomography, involving the H2(15)O injection technique, was used to study changes in regional cerebral blood flow during Japanese kanji word reading. Three-times intrasubject averaging analysis revealed that the main cortical responses occurred in the bilateral (left-side dominant) posterior inferior temporal area for visual input. We believe the left posterior inferior temporal area processes highly complex morphological features of kanji. For language output, left-side dominant activation of the posterior inferior frontal gyrus and the basal ganglia was found.

Adult

Cerebral blood flow correlates of word monitoring in sentences: influence of semantic incoherence. A spect study in normals.

The aim of this study was to assess the cerebral blood flow (CBF) changes induced by the semantic incoherence of sentences whose words were to be monitored by the subjects. According to Marslen-Wilson and Tyler, word processing would be parallel (global) in semantically coherent sentences, and serial (local) in semantically incoherent ones. We hypothesized that, in comparison with the parallel mode, the serial mode of word processing would result in a preponderant activation of the frontal lobes and/or of the left hemisphere, hence in a flow increase in these regions. In addition, one could assume that the increase in task complexity resulting from the breaking of semantic coherence would reinforce the functional links between hemispheres. Furthermore, as interactions between the processing of semantically coherent vs incoherent of verbal materials and the processing of imageable vs non-imageable stimuli was recently suspected, we designed a study combining coherent vs incoherent sentences and imageable vs non-imageable words. The results we obtained in 12 normal volunteers by measuring regional cerebral blood flow by SPECT and IV injection of Xenon 133 during the four experimental conditions, did not allow us to firmly establish our hypotheses. Indeed, we failed to demonstrate any significant CBF changes across conditions and there was no interaction between coherent vs incoherent and imageable vs non-imageable conditions. However, the analysis of the inter-regional correlations pointed to an increase in the functional links between the hemispheres in the incoherent conditions, whatever the imageability.

Adult

[Product of the month: scientific text processing using the MS-DOS computer].

A new German word processing system, "Starwriter 6.0" for MS-DOS computers is introduced and important functions are described. The possibility of using different fonts, creating complex formulas, footnotes and endnotes, and using various functions for importing and exporting text and data files make this program highly suitable for scientific texts.

Germany

A microcomputer application curriculum for emergency medicine residents using computer-assisted instruction.

A microcomputer application curriculum using computer-assisted instruction was developed for emergency medicine residents. Other than introductory comments, the course was composed entirely of disk-based tutorials. No faculty time was necessary. Subjects covered included introduction to microcomputers, the disk operating system; word processing, data bases, and spread sheets. The entire course, including the tutorial floppy disks, was contained in one loose-leaf notebook. Residents who took the course were surveyed. The course took an average of three to six hours to complete. All found the course to be helpful, with word processing being the most useful module. The majority of residents thought that the course was so valuable that it should be given earlier in the residency. Thus, we have moved the course to the first postgraduate year, and the data base and spread-sheet modules have been made optional. The course is easily assembled, requires minimal faculty time, and can be modified to accommodate different hardware and software.

Computer-Assisted Instruction

Office automation.

By now, the term "office automation" should have more meaning for those readers who are not intimately familiar with the subject. Not all of the preceding material pertains to every department or practice, but certainly, word processing and simple telephone management are key items. The size and complexity of the organization will dictate the usefulness of electronic mail and calendar management, and the individual radiologist's personal needs and habits will determine the usefulness of the home computer. Perhaps the most important ingredient for success in the office automation arena relates to the ability to integrate information from various systems in a simple and flexible manner. Unfortunately, this is perhaps the one area that most office automation systems have ignored or handled poorly. In the personal computer world, there has been much emphasis recently on integration of packages such as spreadsheet, database management, word processing, graphics, time management, and communications. This same philosophy of integration has been applied to a few office automation systems, but these are generally vendor-specific and do not allow for a mixture of foreign subsystems. During the next few years, it is likely that a few vendors will emerge as dominant in this integrated office automation field and will stress simplicity and flexibility as major components.

Computers

Automatic processes in word perception: an analysis from illusory conjunctions.

When asked to report the color of a target letter in a briefly presented word or pseudoword, Ss were more likely to report the color of letters from the same syllablelike unit than the color of other letters. Because Ss were not required to make a lexical decision or naming response, the multiletter units that are revealed by this task arise automatically. It was found that the syllablelike units are not phonological but correspond to orthographic patterns and morphemes. These units affect performance regardless of changes in letter-case, suggesting that the units are based on abstract letter identities. Unit formation was also not affected by visual field of presentation. Several experiments demonstrated that the morphological and orthographic units arise from different processes: The morphological units depend on lexical access, and the orthographic units do not. Finally, the effects of orthography are stronger for good readers than for poor readers.

Adolescent

[Effects of video games on visual function in children].

Health effects of video games were examined with a questionnaire survey and an experimental study. In the survey, age, sex, playing time with video games in a day, viewing distance between the eyes and the television screen, subjective symptoms of eye strain, and changes of visual acuity were investigated in 2,034 male and 2,321 female primary school children. In the experimental study, the visual loads of a one-hour word processing task and a video game were compared with various indices, such as critical flicker fusion, near point distance, blinking counts, eyeball movement, pupillary reflex and subjective fatigue symptoms in ten healthy male college students. The results of this study were as follows: 1) The viewing distance between the eyes and the TV screen was shorter for video games than for watching TV programs. 2) The rate of complaints related to eye strain in children who played video games over 120 min per day was significantly higher than that of other children. 3) The eye movements during video games were more rapid and frequent than those during conventional VDT work. 4) A decrease in CFF value and an extension of near point distance and an increase in subjective fatigue symptoms were demonstrated for both the word processing task and the video game. No significant differences were observed between the above two experimental conditions. This suggests that the visual loads for video games are similar to those for VDT work. These findings suggest that regulating the playing times to 60 minutes or less per day is necessary to prevent negative health effects in children.

Asthenopia