The Role of Verbs in Sentence Production

To investigate the role of verbs in sentence production, the experiment reported here employed a simple sentence elicitation technique based on separate elicitor images for the different sentence constituents: subject, verb, and verbal modifier. This permitted presenting them in different temporal configurations to see whether the time taken to start uttering the subject of a sentence was contingent on having access to information about the action that would determine verb selection. The results show that sentence onset latencies varied in relation to the presentation of the verb elicitor, suggesting that sentence processing depends crucially on having access to the information pertaining to the verb. What is more, increases in the lexical frequency of the actual verbs used significantly reduced onset latencies for the subject noun as expected if the verb lemmas have to be retrieved before the sentence can be processed. Among other things, this argues against strict linearity and in favor of hierarchical incrementality in sentence production. Additionally, the results hint at the possibility that other obligatory sentence constituents [namely, direct objects (DOs) in transitive sentences] may also have to be available before the sentence can be processed

Structural priming and second language learning

This thesis investigates L2 structural priming in learners of English and the possible role of structural priming in second language acquisition. Three picture description production priming experiments were carried out in which speakers were exposed to prime sentences exhibiting a specific target structure. A pre- and post-test design was deployed to measure learning effects. In Experiment 1, fifty two L2 English speakers took part in a structural priming experiment targeting the production of get passives (e.g., the woman got arrested). Priming and learning effects were weak and were manifested in production of non-get passives. In contrast, in Experiment 2, where thirty eight L2 English speakers took part in another structural priming experiment targeting the production of stranded prepositions in relative clauses (e.g., a bed is something you sleep on), priming and learning effects were strong. The findings of learning through structural priming are interpreted as evidence of implicit learning of L2 structure. However, when the stranded preposition structure was primed in a different sentential context (i.e., the bed was too uncomfortable to sleep on) in a third experiment (n=40) only a weak priming effect emerged and there appeared to be no significant learning effect. These disparate findings suggest that the strength of L2 structural priming and subsequent learning effects might be modulated by the target structure. Implications for second language teaching and learning and theories of second language acquisition are discussed

Global burden of 288 causes of death and life expectancy decomposition in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations, 1990–2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

BACKGROUND Regular, detailed reporting on population health by underlying cause of death is fundamental for public health decision making. Cause-specific estimates of mortality and the subsequent effects on life expectancy worldwide are valuable metrics to gauge progress in reducing mortality rates. These estimates are particularly important following large-scale mortality spikes, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. When systematically analysed, mortality rates and life expectancy allow comparisons of the consequences of causes of death globally and over time, providing a nuanced understanding of the effect of these causes on global populations. METHODS The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2021 cause-of-death analysis estimated mortality and years of life lost (YLLs) from 288 causes of death by age-sex-location-year in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations for each year from 1990 until 2021. The analysis used 56 604 data sources, including data from vital registration and verbal autopsy as well as surveys, censuses, surveillance systems, and cancer registries, among others. As with previous GBD rounds, cause-specific death rates for most causes were estimated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model-a modelling tool developed for GBD to assess the out-of-sample predictive validity of different statistical models and covariate permutations and combine those results to produce cause-specific mortality estimates-with alternative strategies adapted to model causes with insufficient data, substantial changes in reporting over the study period, or unusual epidemiology. YLLs were computed as the product of the number of deaths for each cause-age-sex-location-year and the standard life expectancy at each age. As part of the modelling process, uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated using the 2·5th and 97·5th percentiles from a 1000-draw distribution for each metric. We decomposed life expectancy by cause of death, location, and year to show cause-specific effects on life expectancy from 1990 to 2021. We also used the coefficient of variation and the fraction of population affected by 90% of deaths to highlight concentrations of mortality. Findings are reported in counts and age-standardised rates. Methodological improvements for cause-of-death estimates in GBD 2021 include the expansion of under-5-years age group to include four new age groups, enhanced methods to account for stochastic variation of sparse data, and the inclusion of COVID-19 and other pandemic-related mortality-which includes excess mortality associated with the pandemic, excluding COVID-19, lower respiratory infections, measles, malaria, and pertussis. For this analysis, 199 new country-years of vital registration cause-of-death data, 5 country-years of surveillance data, 21 country-years of verbal autopsy data, and 94 country-years of other data types were added to those used in previous GBD rounds. FINDINGS The leading causes of age-standardised deaths globally were the same in 2019 as they were in 1990; in descending order, these were, ischaemic heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lower respiratory infections. In 2021, however, COVID-19 replaced stroke as the second-leading age-standardised cause of death, with 94·0 deaths (95% UI 89·2-100·0) per 100 000 population. The COVID-19 pandemic shifted the rankings of the leading five causes, lowering stroke to the third-leading and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to the fourth-leading position. In 2021, the highest age-standardised death rates from COVID-19 occurred in sub-Saharan Africa (271·0 deaths [250·1-290·7] per 100 000 population) and Latin America and the Caribbean (195·4 deaths [182·1-211·4] per 100 000 population). The lowest age-standardised death rates from COVID-19 were in the high-income super-region (48·1 deaths [47·4-48·8] per 100 000 population) and southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania (23·2 deaths [16·3-37·2] per 100 000 population). Globally, life expectancy steadily improved between 1990 and 2019 for 18 of the 22 investigated causes. Decomposition of global and regional life expectancy showed the positive effect that reductions in deaths from enteric infections, lower respiratory infections, stroke, and neonatal deaths, among others have contributed to improved survival over the study period. However, a net reduction of 1·6 years occurred in global life expectancy between 2019 and 2021, primarily due to increased death rates from COVID-19 and other pandemic-related mortality. Life expectancy was highly variable between super-regions over the study period, with southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania gaining 8·3 years (6·7-9·9) overall, while having the smallest reduction in life expectancy due to COVID-19 (0·4 years). The largest reduction in life expectancy due to COVID-19 occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean (3·6 years). Additionally, 53 of the 288 causes of death were highly concentrated in locations with less than 50% of the global population as of 2021, and these causes of death became progressively more concentrated since 1990, when only 44 causes showed this pattern. The concentration phenomenon is discussed heuristically with respect to enteric and lower respiratory infections, malaria, HIV/AIDS, neonatal disorders, tuberculosis, and measles. INTERPRETATION Long-standing gains in life expectancy and reductions in many of the leading causes of death have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the adverse effects of which were spread unevenly among populations. Despite the pandemic, there has been continued progress in combatting several notable causes of death, leading to improved global life expectancy over the study period. Each of the seven GBD super-regions showed an overall improvement from 1990 and 2021, obscuring the negative effect in the years of the pandemic. Additionally, our findings regarding regional variation in causes of death driving increases in life expectancy hold clear policy utility. Analyses of shifting mortality trends reveal that several causes, once widespread globally, are now increasingly concentrated geographically. These changes in mortality concentration, alongside further investigation of changing risks, interventions, and relevant policy, present an important opportunity to deepen our understanding of mortality-reduction strategies. Examining patterns in mortality concentration might reveal areas where successful public health interventions have been implemented. Translating these successes to locations where certain causes of death remain entrenched can inform policies that work to improve life expectancy for people everywhere. FUNDING Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Prevalence, associated factors and outcomes of pressure injuries in adult intensive care unit patients: the DecubICUs study

Funder: European Society of Intensive Care Medicine; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100013347Funder: Flemish Society for Critical Care NursesAbstract: Purpose: Intensive care unit (ICU) patients are particularly susceptible to developing pressure injuries. Epidemiologic data is however unavailable. We aimed to provide an international picture of the extent of pressure injuries and factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries in adult ICU patients. Methods: International 1-day point-prevalence study; follow-up for outcome assessment until hospital discharge (maximum 12 weeks). Factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injury and hospital mortality were assessed by generalised linear mixed-effects regression analysis. Results: Data from 13,254 patients in 1117 ICUs (90 countries) revealed 6747 pressure injuries; 3997 (59.2%) were ICU-acquired. Overall prevalence was 26.6% (95% confidence interval [CI] 25.9–27.3). ICU-acquired prevalence was 16.2% (95% CI 15.6–16.8). Sacrum (37%) and heels (19.5%) were most affected. Factors independently associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries were older age, male sex, being underweight, emergency surgery, higher Simplified Acute Physiology Score II, Braden score 3 days, comorbidities (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, immunodeficiency), organ support (renal replacement, mechanical ventilation on ICU admission), and being in a low or lower-middle income-economy. Gradually increasing associations with mortality were identified for increasing severity of pressure injury: stage I (odds ratio [OR] 1.5; 95% CI 1.2–1.8), stage II (OR 1.6; 95% CI 1.4–1.9), and stage III or worse (OR 2.8; 95% CI 2.3–3.3). Conclusion: Pressure injuries are common in adult ICU patients. ICU-acquired pressure injuries are associated with mainly intrinsic factors and mortality. Optimal care standards, increased awareness, appropriate resource allocation, and further research into optimal prevention are pivotal to tackle this important patient safety threat

Correction to: Prevalence, associated factors and outcomes of pressure injuries in adult intensive care unit patients: the DecubICUs study

The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake

Prevalence, associated factors and outcomes of pressure injuries in adult intensive care unit patients: the DecubICUs study

Funder: European Society of Intensive Care Medicine; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100013347Funder: Flemish Society for Critical Care NursesAbstract: Purpose: Intensive care unit (ICU) patients are particularly susceptible to developing pressure injuries. Epidemiologic data is however unavailable. We aimed to provide an international picture of the extent of pressure injuries and factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries in adult ICU patients. Methods: International 1-day point-prevalence study; follow-up for outcome assessment until hospital discharge (maximum 12 weeks). Factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injury and hospital mortality were assessed by generalised linear mixed-effects regression analysis. Results: Data from 13,254 patients in 1117 ICUs (90 countries) revealed 6747 pressure injuries; 3997 (59.2%) were ICU-acquired. Overall prevalence was 26.6% (95% confidence interval [CI] 25.9–27.3). ICU-acquired prevalence was 16.2% (95% CI 15.6–16.8). Sacrum (37%) and heels (19.5%) were most affected. Factors independently associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries were older age, male sex, being underweight, emergency surgery, higher Simplified Acute Physiology Score II, Braden score 3 days, comorbidities (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, immunodeficiency), organ support (renal replacement, mechanical ventilation on ICU admission), and being in a low or lower-middle income-economy. Gradually increasing associations with mortality were identified for increasing severity of pressure injury: stage I (odds ratio [OR] 1.5; 95% CI 1.2–1.8), stage II (OR 1.6; 95% CI 1.4–1.9), and stage III or worse (OR 2.8; 95% CI 2.3–3.3). Conclusion: Pressure injuries are common in adult ICU patients. ICU-acquired pressure injuries are associated with mainly intrinsic factors and mortality. Optimal care standards, increased awareness, appropriate resource allocation, and further research into optimal prevention are pivotal to tackle this important patient safety threat

Gender and number agreement processing in Spanish

The main focus of this dissertation is the processing of agreement between a subject and predicative adjective in Spanish. The basic methodology often employed in experiments in the literature on subject-verb number agreement was used-participants saw an adjective and a sentence preamble consisting of a subject head noun and a prepositional modifier containing a second noun (attractor), and they had to complete the sentence by adding a verb and using the given adjective. Agreement errors in the gender and number of the adjective and in the number of the verb were analyzed. In the first experiment, the possible differences between two types of gender were studied. Spanish nouns can be divided into two types according to whether their gender has semantic import. Most nouns referring to animate beings possess gender specification at two levels-semantic and grammatical, while the rest possess gender only at a grammatical level, and this difference could be reflected in the agreement process. The results point to the fact that gender agreement is indeed sensitive to gender type. The second experiment investigated the relationship between gender and number agreement with the predicative adjective, and of number agreement between subject and verb, and subject and predicative adjective. The results indicate that processing of gender agreement is independent of processing of number agreement. They also indicate that the computation of number agreement between a single source (subject head) and different targets (verb and predicative adjective) is a single process, that is, that agreement with one of the targets is dependent on agreement with the other. In the third experiment, the effect of morphophonology on gender agreement was tested by manipulating the regularity of the nouns in the sentence preambles. The pattern of errors implies that the morphological properties of nouns with semantic gender does affect agreement, but not so the phonological properties of nouns with purely grammatical gender. Overall, the results of the three experiments are more compatible with a modular model of language production, as well as with a feature copying account of agreement implementation

Visual salience effects on speaker choices: Direct or indirect influences on linguistic processing?

The effect of visual salience on speakers' choices is investigated by contrasting the effects of both visual and linguistic manipulations on picture descriptions and eye movements. Two-character pictures were used, which can be described in one of two complementary ways (e.g., a cop chasing a robber can be described either from a chasing or from a fleeing perspective), and using simple actives or other alternative syntactic structures (e.g., 'a robber is being chased by a cop'). The pictures were preceded by a verb priming one of the two perspectives and/or a preview of one of the two characters. The results show that the visual manipulation affects looks to the characters regardless of which perspective had been linguistically primed, but it only affects verbal descriptions in the absence of a linguistic prime. Linguistically priming one of the perspectives, in contrast, has a reliable effect on both looks to the characters and verbal descriptions. These results suggest that visual salience does not influence linguistic choices directly

Gender Bender: Gender Errors in L2 Pronoun Production

To address questions about information processing at the message level, pronoun errors of second language (L2) speakers of English were studied. Some L2 pronoun errors - 'he/she' confusions by Spanish speakers of L2 English - could be due to differences in the informational requirements of the speakers' two languages, providing a window into the composition of the preverbal message that guides grammatical encoding during language production. To study this, Spanish and French speakers of L2 English were made to answer questions designed to elicit pronouns. Spanish speakers produced significantly more gender errors than any other type of pronoun error, and significantly more gender errors than French speakers. The results are as expected given that Spanish is a pro-drop language where many sentences would not have required gender to be encoded had they been uttered in the L1 instead of the L2. The implications for theories about the preverbal message are discussed

Independence of syntactic and phonological deficits in dyslexia

The data are from an experiment addressing the question of whether dyslexic children suffer from syntactic deficits that are independent of limitations with phonological processing, and the possible effect of system overload on syntactic processing. The experiment consisted of presenting a complex Noun Phrase (e.g., the owner of the house) that served as a preamble for participants to make a full sentence (e.g., “the owner of the house is away”). The preamble could be presented either visually or aurally, and the number of the two nouns in the NP was systematically varied to create number matched or mismatched preambles (e.g., the owners of the house, or the owner of the houses). Additionally, the second noun could be either a low or high frequency noun. The experiment was implemented using EPrime v2. The excel file contains the merged output of EPrime, the transcribed elicited sentences, and the coding of responses in terms of their validity and type of error (the second tab in the excel file contains a coding key)