Swearing, Euphemisms, and Linguistic Relativity

Participants read aloud swear words, euphemisms of the swear words, and neutral stimuli while their autonomic activity was measured by electrodermal activity. The key finding was that autonomic responses to swear words were larger than to euphemisms and neutral stimuli. It is argued that the heightened response to swear words reflects a form of verbal conditioning in which the phonological form of the word is directly associated with an affective response. Euphemisms are effective because they replace the trigger (the offending word form) by another word form that expresses a similar idea. That is, word forms exert some control on affect and cognition in turn. We relate these findings to the linguistic relativity hypothesis, and suggest a simple mechanistic account of how language may influence thinking in this context

Tocilizumab in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 (RECOVERY): a randomised, controlled, open-label, platform trial

Background: In this study, we aimed to evaluate the effects of tocilizumab in adult patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 with both hypoxia and systemic inflammation. Methods: This randomised, controlled, open-label, platform trial (Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19 Therapy [RECOVERY]), is assessing several possible treatments in patients hospitalised with COVID-19 in the UK. Those trial participants with hypoxia (oxygen saturation <92% on air or requiring oxygen therapy) and evidence of systemic inflammation (C-reactive protein ≥75 mg/L) were eligible for random assignment in a 1:1 ratio to usual standard of care alone versus usual standard of care plus tocilizumab at a dose of 400 mg–800 mg (depending on weight) given intravenously. A second dose could be given 12–24 h later if the patient's condition had not improved. The primary outcome was 28-day mortality, assessed in the intention-to-treat population. The trial is registered with ISRCTN (50189673) and ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT04381936). Findings: Between April 23, 2020, and Jan 24, 2021, 4116 adults of 21 550 patients enrolled into the RECOVERY trial were included in the assessment of tocilizumab, including 3385 (82%) patients receiving systemic corticosteroids. Overall, 621 (31%) of the 2022 patients allocated tocilizumab and 729 (35%) of the 2094 patients allocated to usual care died within 28 days (rate ratio 0·85; 95% CI 0·76–0·94; p=0·0028). Consistent results were seen in all prespecified subgroups of patients, including those receiving systemic corticosteroids. Patients allocated to tocilizumab were more likely to be discharged from hospital within 28 days (57% vs 50%; rate ratio 1·22; 1·12–1·33; p<0·0001). Among those not receiving invasive mechanical ventilation at baseline, patients allocated tocilizumab were less likely to reach the composite endpoint of invasive mechanical ventilation or death (35% vs 42%; risk ratio 0·84; 95% CI 0·77–0·92; p<0·0001). Interpretation: In hospitalised COVID-19 patients with hypoxia and systemic inflammation, tocilizumab improved survival and other clinical outcomes. These benefits were seen regardless of the amount of respiratory support and were additional to the benefits of systemic corticosteroids. Funding: UK Research and Innovation (Medical Research Council) and National Institute of Health Research

Word recognition development in children : insights from masked-priming

The masked priming procedure has been widely used in adult psycholinguistic research as a means of exploring early and automatic processes in written word recognition. In this chapter, we discuss the recent extension of this technique for use in exploring written vocabulary development in children learning to read. We first report data to show that robust masked priming effects can be produced in children as young as 7 years old. We then outline the results of some recent orthographic and phonological priming studies that illustrate how masked priming data can uncover the processes by which children access written word representations and the ways in which these processes may change as children gradually learn more words

The role of neighbourhood density in transposed-letter priming

We investigated how transposed-letter (TL) priming effects are modulated by neighbourhood density in lexical decision task and cross-case same-different task. Robust identity priming and TL priming effects were observed in both tasks. Neighbourhood density facilitated 'word' decisions and reduced the size of identity priming effect in the lexical decision task. It had no effect on the same-different task, and did not modulate identity or TL priming. We take these results as indicating that neighbourhood density modulates priming during lexical access. In the lexical decision task, the difference between identity priming and TL priming was reduced for words from high-density neighbourhood. The last finding is at odds with the 'lexical tuning' hypothesis which has been used to explain modulatory effects of neighbourhood density on masked form priming effects. We also discuss implication of the results for various letter position coding schemes

Word recognition development in children : insights from masked-priming

The masked priming procedure has been widely used in adult psycholinguistic research as a means of exploring early and automatic processes in written word recognition. In this chapter, we discuss the recent extension of this technique for use in exploring written vocabulary development in children learning to read. We first report data to show that robust masked priming effects can be produced in children as young as 7 years old. We then outline the results of some recent orthographic and phonological priming studies that illustrate how masked priming data can uncover the processes by which children access written word representations and the ways in which these processes may change as children gradually learn more words

Effects of consistency and age of acquisition on reading and spelling in developing readers

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Lapses of concentration and dyslexic performance on the Ternus task

Recently, Cestnick and Coltheart (Cognition 71 (1999) 231) have reported evidence of abnormal performance on the Ternus apparent motion task in dyslexics. We demonstrate that some aspects of their data may be accounted for by more frequent lapses of concentration in the dyslexic group than in controls. We then report on a study in which a modification of the Ternus procedure was employed to simplify the task and to control for the effects of inattention. The results suggest that dyslexics do genuinely differ from normal readers in their perceptual processing

The impact of progressive semantic loss on reading aloud

The role of semantics in reading aloud remains controversial. To explore this issue, the current study examined the impact of semantic loss on reading-aloud performance in 7 patients with semantic dementia. The results revealed a heterogenous pattern of reading difficulties. Of the patients, 2 selectively made errors on inconsistent words (i.e., surface dyslexia), 4 had a generalized reading deficit with increased errors on consistent words, inconsistent words, and nonwords, while the remaining patient had relatively intact reading-aloud accuracy. All patients had longer reading latencies on real words than controls. The relationship between the reading and semantic deficits in the patients was examined at the item-specific level. This suggested that reading-aloud errors were related to the semantic impairment for inconsistent words but not consistent words. In contrast, semantic loss was related to longer latencies for both consistent and inconsistent words. These findings support models of reading that include a role for semantics in the reading-aloud process

Semantic involvement in reading aloud : evidence from a nonword training study

The current research uses a novel methodology to examine the role of semantics in reading aloud. Participants were trained to read aloud 2 sets of novel words (i.e., nonwords such as bink): some with meanings (semantic) and some without (nonsemantic). A comparison of reading aloud performance between these 2 sets of novel words was used to provide an indicator of the importance of semantic information in reading aloud. In Experiment 1, in contrast to expectations, reading aloud performance was not better for novel words in the semantic condition. In Experiment 2, the training of novel words was modified to reflect more realistic steps of lexical acquisition: Reading aloud performance became faster and more accurate for novel words in the semantic condition, but only for novel words with inconsistent pronunciations. This semantic advantage for inconsistent novel words was again observed when a subset of participants from Experiment 2 was retested 6-12 months later (in Experiment 3). These findings provide support for a limited but significant role for semantics in the reading aloud process