Timing of Gestures: Gestures Anticipating or Simultaneous With Speech as Indexes of Text Comprehension in Children and Adults

The deep comprehension of a text is tantamount to the construction of an articulated mental model of that text. The number of correct recollections is an index of a learner's mental model of a text. We assume that another index of comprehension is the timing of the gestures produced during text recall; gestures are simultaneous with speech when the learner has built an articulated mental model of the text, whereas they anticipate the speech when the learner has built a less articulated mental model. The results of four experiments confirm the predictions deriving from our assumptions for both children and adults. Provided that the recollections are correct, the timing of gestures can differ and can be considered a further measure of the quality of the mental model, beyond the number of correct recollections

Non-determinism in the Uptake of Gestural Information

It is well established that gestures and speech form an integrated system of communication; gestures that match the meaning of the speech they accompany favor the listener's discourse comprehension, whereas mismatching gestures whose meaning conveys information contradicting that conveyed by speech, impair comprehension. A less investigated issue is whether or not the uptake of gestural information is a deterministic process. In line with recent studies in the literature, we purport that the process may be modulated by certain factors. In particular, we investigate the role of unrelated gestures whose meaning, which is irrelevant to the speech they accompany, could be neglected. The results of four experiments led us to conclude that unrelated gestures are not processed, and that the uptake of gestural information is a non-deterministic process

Neuropragmatics: Extralinguistic communication after closed head injury

This work is concerned with the decay of communicative abilities after head trauma. A protocol composed of 16 videotaped scenes was devised in order to investigate the comprehension of several types of communicative actions realized with extralinguistic means, like pointing or clapping. The protocol was administered to 30 closed head injured individuals. The results showed a decreasing performance from simple standard acts, to complex standard acts, deceits, and ironies. The subjects' performance was worse with the scenes reproducing failing, rather than successful, communicative actions. The results are compared with those we previously obtained with a linguistic protocol. A theory of the cognitive processes underlying intentional communication is outlined and used to explain the results

Predicting Parkinson's disease evolution using deep learning

Parkinson's disease is a neurological condition that occurs in nearly 1% of the world's population. The disease is manifested by a drop in dopamine production, symptoms are cognitive and behavioural and include a wide range of personality changes, depressive disorders, memory problems, and emotional dysregulation, which can occur as the disease progresses. Early diagnosis and accurate staging of the disease are essential to apply the appropriate therapeutic approaches to slow cognitive and motor decline. Currently, there is not a single blood test or biomarker available to diagnose Parkinson's disease. Magnetic resonance imaging has been used for the past three decades to diagnose and distinguish between PD and other neurological conditions. However, in recent years new possibilities have arisen: several AI algorithms have been developed to increase the precision and accuracy of differential diagnosis of PD at an early stage. To our knowledge, no AI tools have been designed to identify the stage of progression. This paper aims to fill this gap. Using the "Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative" dataset, which reports the patient's MRI and an indication of the disease stage, we developed a model to identify the level of progression. The images and the associated scores were used for training and assessing different deep-learning models. Our analysis distinguished four distinct disease progression levels based on a standard scale (Hoehn and Yah scale). The final architecture consists of the cascading of a 3DCNN network, adopted to reduce and extract the spatial characteristics of the RMI for efficient training of the successive LSTM layers, aiming at modelling the temporal dependencies among the data. Our results show that the proposed 3DCNN + LSTM model achieves state-of-the-art results by classifying the elements with 91.90\% as macro averaged OVR AUC on four classesComment: 27 pages, 11 figure

Cognitive change in learning from text : gesturing enhances the construction of the text mental model

The literature on co-speech gestures has revealed a facilitating effect of gestures on both the listener\u2019s discourse comprehension and memory, and the speaker\u2019s discourse production. Bucciarelli (2007) and Cutica and Bucciarelli (2008) advanced a mental model account for the cognitive change produced by gestures: Gestures, whether observed or produced, favour the construction of a mental model of the discourse they accompany. In this paper, we focus on gesturing while studying, assuming that gesturing while reading a text also favours the construction of a mental model of the text. In two experiments we invited adult participants to study two scientific texts and confirmed the predictions deriving from the assumption that gestures favour the construction of a mental model of the text: Gesturing while studying resulted in more correct recollections and text-based inferences (Experiment 1) and loss of verbatim recall (Experiment 2)

Neuropsychological profile in a specific cohort of HIV patients infected postnatally : a cross-sectional study

HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HANDs) are one of the most important complications of HIV infection reported in the current literature. Although HANDs have been closely studied in vertically infected HIV populations or in specific subgroups such as drug abusers or homosexuals, they have been completely understudied in hemophilia patients with HIV, infected through transfusions postnatally. For this reason, it seemed interesting to evaluate the presence of HAND in this specific population. The aim of this work is to present a study protocol aimed at assessing the neuropsychological profile of HIV+ hemophilia patients compared with that of HIV 12 hemophilia patients. This is the first European study to evaluate the neuropsychological profile of HIV+ adult hemophiliacs prospectively

The psychometric properties of the Italian adaptation of the Health Orientation Scale (HOS)

Background: A novel approach suggested that cognitive and dispositional features may explain in depth the health behaviors adoption and the adherence to prevention programs. The Health Orientation Scale (HOS) has been extensively used to map the adoption of health and unhealthy behaviors according to cognitive and dispositional features. Coherently, the main aim of the current research was to assess the factor structure of the Italian version of the HOS using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and testing the construct validity of the scale by assessing differences in health orientations between tobacco cigarette smokers and nonsmokers. Method: The research protocol was organized in two studies. Study 1 evaluated the dimensionality of the HOS in a sample of Northern Italian healthy people. Three hundred and twenty-one participants were enrolled; they were 229 women (71.3%) and 92 men (28.7%). In Study 2, the factor structure and construct validity of the HOS Italian version was assessed trough confirmatory factor analysis using a tobacco cigarette smokers and nonsmokers population. Two hundred and nineteen participants were enrolled; they were 164 women (75.2%) and 55 men (24.8%). Results: In Study 1, a seven factors solution was obtained explaining 60% of cumulative variance instead of 10 factors solution of the original version of the HOS. In Study 2, the factor structure of the Italian version of the HOS was confirmed and applied to the smokers and nonsmokers; nonsmokers reported higher values than smokers in Factor 1 (MHPP) [t (208) = - 2.739 p <.007] (CI 95-4.96% to -.809), Factor 2 (HES) [t (209) = - 3.387 p <.001] (CI 95-3.93% to -. 1.03), Factor 3 (HIC) [t(213) = - 2.468 p <.014] (CI 95-2.56% to -.28) and Factor 7 (HEX) [t(217) = - 3.451 p <.001] (CI 95%- 1.45 to.39). Conclusions: Results of the Italian adaptation of HOS lead to a partial redistribution of items and confirmed 7 subscales to distinguish psycho-cognitive dispositional dimensions involved in health orientation styles

The psychometric properties of the Italian adaptation of the Health Orientation Scale (HOS)

Background: A novel approach suggested that cognitive and dispositional features may explain in depth the health behaviors adoption and the adherence to prevention programs. The Health Orientation Scale (HOS) has been extensively used to map the adoption of health and unhealthy behaviors according to cognitive and dispositional features. Coherently, the main aim of the current research was to assess the factor structure of the Italian version of the HOS using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and testing the construct validity of the scale by assessing differences in health orientations between tobacco cigarette smokers and nonsmokers. Method: The research protocol was organized in two studies. Study 1 evaluated the dimensionality of the HOS in a sample of Northern Italian healthy people. Three hundred and twenty-one participants were enrolled; they were 229 women (71.3%) and 92 men (28.7%). In Study 2, the factor structure and construct validity of the HOS Italian version was assessed trough confirmatory factor analysis using a tobacco cigarette smokers and nonsmokers population. Two hundred and nineteen participants were enrolled; they were 164 women (75.2%) and 55 men (24.8%). Results: In Study 1, a seven factors solution was obtained explaining 60% of cumulative variance instead of 10 factors solution of the original version of the HOS. In Study 2, the factor structure of the Italian version of the HOS was confirmed and applied to the smokers and nonsmokers; nonsmokers reported higher values than smokers in Factor 1 (MHPP) [t (208) = - 2.739 p <.007] (CI 95-4.96% to -.809), Factor 2 (HES) [t (209) = - 3.387 p <.001] (CI 95-3.93% to -. 1.03), Factor 3 (HIC) [t(213) = - 2.468 p <.014] (CI 95-2.56% to -.28) and Factor 7 (HEX) [t(217) = - 3.451 p <.001] (CI 95%- 1.45 to.39). Conclusions: Results of the Italian adaptation of HOS lead to a partial redistribution of items and confirmed 7 subscales to distinguish psycho-cognitive dispositional dimensions involved in health orientation styles

German and Italian Users of Web-Accessed Genetic Data: Attitudes on Personal Utility and Personal Sharing Preferences. Results of a Comparative Survey (n=192)

Genetic information is increasingly provided outside of the traditional clinical setting, allowing users to access it directly via specialized online platforms. This development is possibly resulting in changing ethical and social challenges for users of predictive genetic tests. Little is known about the attitudes and experiences of users of web-accessed genetic information. This survey analyzes data from two European countries with regard to the utility of genetic information, the users\u2019 ways of making use of and dealing with information, and their sharing behavior. Particular focus is given to ethical and social questions regarding the motivation to share personal genetic results with others. Social factors tested for are national background, gender, and marital, parental, and educational status. This study will contribute to public discourse and offer ethical recommendations. The study will also serve to validate the developed questionnaire for use in population representative surveys