The social cognition of medical knowledge, with special reference to childhood epilepsy

This paper arose out of an engagement in medical communication courses at a Gulf university. It deploys a theoretical framework derived from a (critical) sociocognitive approach to discourse analysis in order to investigate three aspects of medical discourse relating to childhood epilepsy: the cognitive processes that are entailed in relating different types of medical knowledge to their communicative context; the types of medical knowledge that are constituted in the three different text types analysed; and the relationship between these different types of medical knowledge and the discursive features of each text type. The paper argues that there is a cognitive dimension to the human experience of understanding and talking about one specialized from of medical knowledge. It recommends that texts be studied in medical communication courses not just in terms of their discrete formal features but also critically, in terms of the knowledge which they produce, transmit and reproduce

Fruiting periods of studied plant species.

<p>Plant species are grouped into four categories according to their suitability for the different development stages of <i>Drosophila suzukii</i>.</p

Mean (± S.E.) developmental time (in days) of <i>Drosophila suzukii</i> from eggs to adults among the tested fruits.

<p>Mean (± S.E.) developmental time (in days) of <i>Drosophila suzukii</i> from eggs to adults among the tested fruits.</p

Mean number (± S.E.) of <i>Drosophila suzukii</i> eggs and larvae per fruit in the ‘larvae development test’.

<p>Mean number (± S.E.) of <i>Drosophila suzukii</i> eggs and larvae per fruit in the ‘larvae development test’.</p

Generalized linear models showing the effects of fruit traits on the number of <i>D</i>. <i>suzukii</i> eggs, larvae and adults emerging per 100 fruits.

<p>¹: parameter estimate</p><p>²: standard error</p><p>³: degrees of freedom.</p><p>Generalized linear models showing the effects of fruit traits on the number of <i>D</i>. <i>suzukii</i> eggs, larvae and adults emerging per 100 fruits.</p

Characteristics of the 67 plant species tested in the study.

<p>Characteristics of the 67 plant species tested in the study.</p

Emergence of <i>Drosophila suzukii</i> imagos from the fruits of an additional set of plant species.

<p>These additional species were collected but not included in the analyses because the number of fruit collected per individual or per species was too low to be tested.</p