Examining the sentence superiority effect for sentences presented and reported in forwards or backwards order

Memory for speech benefits from linguistic structure. Recall is better for sentences than for random strings of words (the "sentence superiority effect"; SSE), and evidence suggests that ongoing speech may be organized advantageously as clauses in memory (recall by word position shows within-clause "U shape"). In this study, we examined the SSE and clause-based organization for closed-set speech materials with low semantic predictability and without typical prosody. An overall SSE was observed and accuracy by word position was enhanced at the clause boundaries for these materials. Next, we tested the effects of mental manipulation on the SSE and clause-based organization. Listeners heard word strings that were syntactic, were arranged syntactically then presented backwards, or were random draws. Participants responded to materials as presented or in reversed order, requiring mental manipulation. Clause-level organization was apparent only for materials presented in syntactic order regardless of response order. After accounting for benefits due to reductions in uncertainty for these close-set materials, an SSE was present for syntactic materials regardless of response order, and for the syntactic backwards condition with reverse-order response (yielding a syntactically correct sentence in the response). Thus, the SSE was both resistant to and could be obtained following mental manipulation.

Training-induced pattern-specific phonetic adjustments by first and second language listeners

The current study investigated the phonetic adjustment mechanisms that underlie perceptual adaptation in first and second language (Dutch-English) listeners by exposing them to a novel English accent containing controlled deviations from the standard accent (e.g. /i/-to-/ɪ/ yielding /krɪm/ instead of /krim/ for 'cream'). These deviations involved contrasts that either were contrastive or were not contrastive in Dutch. Following accent exposure with disambiguating feedback, listeners completed lexical decision and word identification tasks. Both native and second language listeners demonstrated adaptation, evidenced by higher lexical endorsement rates and word identification accuracy than untrained control listeners for items containing trained accent patterns. However, for L2 listeners, adaptation was modulated by the phonemic contrast, that is, whether or not it was contrastive in the listeners' native language. Specifically, the training-induced criterion loosening for the L2 listeners was limited to contrasts that exist in both their L1, Dutch, and L2, English. For contrasts that are either absent or neutralized in Dutch, the L2 listeners demonstrated relatively loose pre-training criteria compared to L1 listeners. The results indicate that accent exposure induces both a general increase in tolerance for atypical speech input as well as targeted adjustments to specific categories for both L1 and L2 listeners.

Linguistic processing of accented speech across the lifespan

In most of the world, people have regular exposure to multiple accents. Therefore, learning to quickly process accented speech is a prerequisite to successful communication. In this paper, we examine work on the perception of accented speech across the lifespan, from early infancy to late adulthood. Unfamiliar accents initially impair linguistic processing by infants, children, younger adults, and older adults, but listeners of all ages come to adapt to accented speech. Emergent research also goes beyond these perceptual abilities, by assessing links with production and the relative contributions of linguistic knowledge and general cognitive skills. We conclude by underlining points of convergence across ages, and the gaps left to face in future work.

A Perceptual Phonetic Similarity Space for Languages: Evidence from Five Native Language Listener Groups

The goal of the present study was to devise a means of representing languages in a perceptual similarity space based on their overall phonetic similarity. In Experiment 1, native English listeners performed a free classification task in which they grouped 17 diverse languages based on their perceived phonetic similarity. A similarity matrix of the grouping patterns was then submitted to clustering and multidimensional scaling analyses. In Experiment 2, an independent group of native English listeners sorted the group of 17 languages in terms of their distance from English. Experiment 3 repeated Experiment 2 with four groups of non-native English listeners: Dutch, Mandarin, Turkish and Korean listeners. Taken together, the results of these three experiments represent a step towards establishing an approach to assessing the overall phonetic similarity of languages. This approach could potentially provide the basis for developing predictions regarding foreign-accented speech intelligibility for various listener groups, and regarding speech perception accuracy in the context of background noise in various languages.

Deficient brainstem encoding of pitch in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

OBJECTIVE

Deficient prosody is a hallmark of the pragmatic (socially contextualized) language impairment in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Prosody communicates emotion and intention and is conveyed through acoustic cues such as pitch contour. Thus, the objective of this study was to examine the subcortical representations of prosodic speech in children with ASD.

METHODS

Using passively evoked brainstem responses to speech syllables with descending and ascending pitch contours, we examined sensory encoding of pitch in children with ASD who had normal intelligence and hearing and were age-matched with typically developing (TD) control children.

RESULTS

We found that some children on the autism spectrum show deficient pitch tracking (evidenced by increased Frequency and Slope Errors and reduced phase locking) compared with TD children.

CONCLUSIONS

This is the first demonstration of subcortical involvement in prosody encoding deficits in this population of children.

SIGNIFICANCE

Our findings may have implications for diagnostic and remediation strategies in a subset of children with ASD and open up an avenue for future investigations.

Perceptions of the risks and benefits of medicines in patients with rheumatoid arthritis and other painful musculoskeletal conditions

OBJECTIVES

To examine beliefs about medication risks and benefits in patients attending a specialist rheumatology clinic for pain-related conditions.

METHODS

Eighty-one patients (37 first attendees and 44 existing clinic patients) completed a written questionnaire which asked about current treatments, perceived effectiveness, main risks and benefits, and compliance.

RESULTS

Existing clinic patients perceived medications to be more effective and more risky than did the new patients, although both groups rated risks to be moderately low. The main perceived risks were adverse side-effects, although patients reported only moderately low levels of experiencing such effects.

CONCLUSIONS

In contrast to some other studies, many of our patients were aware of medication risks and were prepared to accept them provided benefits were seen to be high. Existing clinic patients were more aware of risks and benefits, and reported higher compliance levels than new patients, possibly as a result of the hospital education programme. Future studies should evaluate the effects of the programme more systematically.

Neurobiologic responses to speech in noise in children with learning problems: deficits and strategies for improvement

OBJECTIVES

Some children with learning problems (LP) experience speech-sound perception deficits that worsen in background noise. The first goal was to determine whether these impairments are associated with abnormal neurophysiologic representation of speech features in noise reflected at brain-stem and cortical levels. The second goal was to examine the perceptual and neurophysiological benefits provided to an impaired system by acoustic cue enhancements.

METHODS

Behavioral speech perception measures (just noticeable difference scores), auditory brain-stem responses, frequency-following responses and cortical-evoked potentials (P1, N1, P1', N1') were studied in a group of LP children and compared to responses in normal children.

RESULTS

We report abnormalities in the fundamental sensory representation of sound at brain-stem and cortical levels in the LP children when speech sounds were presented in noise, but not in quiet. Specifically, the neurophysiologic responses from these LP children displayed a different spectral pattern and lacked precision in the neural representation of key stimulus features. Cue enhancement benefited both behavioral and neurophysiological responses.

CONCLUSIONS

Overall, these findings contribute to our understanding of the preconscious biological processes underlying perception deficits and may assist in the design of effective intervention strategies.

Neural representation of consciously imperceptible speech sound differences

The concept of subliminal perception has been a subject of interest and controversy for decades. Of interest in the present investigation was whether a neurophysiologic index of stimulus change could be elicited to speech sound contrasts that were consciously indiscriminable. The stimuli were chosen on the basis of each individual subject's discrimination threshold. The speech stimuli (which varied along an F3 onset frequency continuum from /da/ to /ga/) were synthesized so that the acoustical properties of the stimuli could be tightly controlled. Subthreshold and suprathreshold stimuli were chosen on the basis of behavioral ability demonstrated during psychophysical testing. A significant neural representation of stimulus change, reflected by the mismatch negativity response, was obtained in all but 1 subject in response to subthreshold stimuli. Grand average responses differed significantly from responses obtained in a control condition consisting of physiologic responses elicited by physically identical stimuli. Furthermore, responses to suprathreshold stimuli (close to threshold) did not differ significantly from subthreshold responses with respect to latency, amplitude, or area. These results suggest that neural representation of consciously imperceptible stimulus differences occurs and that this representation occurs at a preattentive level.

Arcanobacterium haemolyticum and Mycoplasma pneumoniae co-infection

Systemic infection caused by Arcanobacterium haemolyticum is uncommon. We report a case of empyema and bacteraemia caused by this organism concomitant with Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection.

Symptomless hyperuricaemia in patients with essential hypertension and normal renal function

In patients with essential hypertension who have apparently normal renal function it is not unusual for the serum uric acid to be elevated. This short review considers the implications of discovering hyperuricaemia in patients with essential hypertension.

Lupus or lupoid hepatitis with mesenteric vasculitis

A 15-yr-old girl with lupus presented with hepatitis and later a mesenteric vasculitis requiring bowel resection. The gastroenterological manifestations of lupus are reviewed with particular reference to hepatic involvement.

Rheumatology

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Arthritic presentation of childhood leukaemia

Three cases of childhood acute lymphatic leukaemia masquerading as juvenile chronic arthritis are presented. All had symptoms and signs for at least 4 months before leukaemia was diagnosed and in two the full blood count was normal at presentation. The importance of a high index of suspicion is emphasized, particularly if the white cell count is low.

Scandinavian rheumatology 1990

The author describes his Royal College-funded tour of Scandinavian rheumatology units in 1990. He compares the funding, organisation and staffing of these units with those of their British counterparts and concludes that more local control, accountability and funding might improve health services. Consideration of the greater use of short-stay and day hospital facilities and the often imaginative ways in which Scandinavian rheumatology units are integrated into their hospitals may lessen the insecurity that many British rheumatology units currently face. Most pressing is the need for general agreement about ways of achieving protection within the NHS for the interests of those with chronic disease.

Dupuytren's contracture and alcohol

Reported alcohol consumption was quantified and scored by a validated questionnaire administered by an interviewer to 64 patients (10 female) with Dupuytren's contracture (DC) before hand surgery and to 89 controls (44 female) admitted for other hand or foot surgery. Serum urate (SUA), gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT), and mean red cell volume (MCV) were measured on admission. Thirteen of 54 men with DC reported current daily alcohol intake of 40 g or more compared with one of 45 male controls (p = 0.0001). Two of 10 women with DC (but none of 44 controls) admitted consuming at least 40 g alcohol daily (p = 0.03). MCV was higher in men (but not women) with DC than in controls (p less than 0.0005). Current alcohol consumption score of patients with DC correlated with SUA (r = 0.308, p less than 0.05), MCV (r = 0.44, p less than 0.01), and GGT (r = 0.54, p much less than 0.001) on admission. DC among men is strongly associated with heavy drinking, reflected both in self reporting and haematological data.

Comparison of reconstructive orthopaedic surgery in patients with seropositive and seronegative rheumatoid arthritis

The longitudinal orthopaedic history of 107 unselected patients with rheumatoid arthritis undergoing reconstructive surgery was studied to define the relationship between serology and surgery. Using strict criteria 85 patients were seropositive and 22 seronegative. Age, disease duration, number of reconstructive orthopaedic operations, and second-line or corticosteroid drug treatment were similar in seropositive and seronegative patients. Users of steroids and/or second-line drugs had a similar number of operations to non-users. However, patients undergoing only hip or knee surgery used steroids more often in the pre-operative disease than those only having other operations (p less than 0.05). This may reflect more-aggressive disease or the direct effect of steroids. The expected proportions of seropositive and seronegative patients together with their similar surgical and treatment patterns do not suggest that they have different diseases.

Alcohol consumption in arthritic patients: clinical and laboratory studies

In popular belief patients with chronic arthritis take alcohol for its analgesic effect. To test this we studied by validated questionnaire the past and present alcohol consumption of 103 patients with primary osteoarthritis of the hip (OA), 95 patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and 90 orthopaedic non-arthritic controls. OA men were most likely and RA men least likely to have been heavy drinkers at any time of their lives. Mean red corpuscular volume (MCV), gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT), and serum uric acid (SUA) levels did not correlate with reported alcohol consumption. Two of 93 OA femoral heads examined had avascular change; both were from heavy drinkers. The abstemiousness of RA men compared with their OA counterparts was due to a striking increase in joint pain after drinking alcohol (p = 0.004), fear of adverse drug reactions with alcohol, and a widespread belief not expressed by OA men that 'alcohol and arthritis do not mix'.

Cutaneous vasculitis and immune complexes in severe bronchiectasis

Four patients with severe bronchiectasis (chronic bronchial suppuration) are described who developed cutaneous lesions associated with exacerbations of their respiratory disease. The skin abnormalities consisted of purpuric lesions in three patients and an erythematous vasculitis in one. Circulating immune complexes were present in all patients and in three skin biopsy specimens showed deposition of C3, IgG, and IgA in dermal blood vessels. Haemophilus influenzae had been isolated from the sputum of all four patients and in two patients was present at the time the cutaneous lesions appeared. It is suggested that local immune complex deposition was responsible for the skin lesions which occurred during acute exacerbations of bronchiectasis.

Multiple spontaneous ruptures of tendons in renal transplant recipient

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Reiter's syndrome in a 73-year-old man with bronchiectasis

We report the case of what we believe to be the oldest person to develop Reiter's Syndrome. There was no evidence of preceding gastro-intestinal or genito-urinary infection but the patient had post-tuberculous bronchiectasis and the role that this might have played is examined.

Group G streptococcal arthritis

Six cases of Lancefield Group G streptococcocal arthritis are described. Two cases had pre-existing chronic arthritis (one rheumatoid) with infection of a joint prosthesis. Three cases had neoplastic disease before or at the same time as septic arthritis. Skin reactions, including cellulitis and scarlatiniform rash were prominent in five cases. One patient may have acquired a Group G streptococcus from her dog. Five cases responded well to penicillin and the sixth who was allergic to that drug was cured by erythromycin. This unusual cause of septic arthritis is being recognized more frequently in the United Kingdom.