Wahlkämpfe zu den Reichsratswahlen im Erzherzogtum Österreich unter der Enns 1911

Ziel der Arbeit ist es, eine Detailstudie über Organisation und Ablauf der Reichsrats-wahlen von 1911 im Erzherzogtum Österreich unter der Enns (d.h. inkl. Wien) darzustellen. Nach Einführungen über das altösterreichische Wahlrecht und die (politische) Vorgeschichte werden einzelne Wahlbezirke einer genaueren Untersuchung zugeführt und die gewonnenen Erkenntnisse in summarischen Kapiteln analysiert. Wichtigste Methoden sind hierbei der Vergleich (zur Wahl von 1907) sowie eine qualitative Auswertung des vorhandenen Quellenmaterials (Statthaltereiakten, Zeitungen, Memoiren), freilich ergänzt durch relevante wissenschaftliche Vorarbeiten.The aim of this study is to provide a detailed exploration of the organisation and proce-dure of the elections of 1911 to the old-Austrian parliament in the Erzherzogtum Österreich unter der Enns (Lower Austria and the city of Vienna). After an introduction to the electoral system and the (political) prehistory, different constituencies are examined in detail. The insights gained will be summed up in separate chapters. The most important method applied is that of comparative analysis (of the elections of 1907). Furthermore, a qualitative research of the sources will be complemented by relevant literature

Phonetic Skills and Verbal Memory Capacity Predict Phonetic-based Word Learning: An Event-related Potential Study

The learning of new words is a challenge that accompanies human beings throughout the entire life span. Although the main electrophysiological markers of word learning have already been described, little is known about the performance-dependent neural machinery underlying this exceptional human faculty. Furthermore, it is currently unknown how word learning abilities are related to verbal memory capacity, auditory attention functions, phonetic discrimination skills, and musicality. Accordingly, we used EEG and examined 40 individuals, who were assigned to two groups (low [LPs] and high performers [HPs]) based on a median split of word learning performance, while they completed a phonetic-based word learning task. Furthermore, we collected behavioral data during an attentive listening and a phonetic discrimination task with the same stimuli to address relationships between auditory attention and phonetic discrimination skills, word learning performance, and musicality. The phonetic-based word learning task, which also included a nonlearning control condition, was sensitive enough to segregate learning-specific and unspecific N200/N400 manifestations along the anterior-posterior topographical axis. Notably, HPs exhibited enhanced verbal memory capacity and we also revealed a performance-dependent spatial N400 pattern, with maximal amplitudes at posterior electrodes in HPs and central maxima in LPs. Furthermore, phonetic-based word learning performance correlated with verbal memory capacity and phonetic discrimination skills, whereas the latter was related to musicality. This experimental approach clearly highlights the multifaceted dimensions of phonetic-based word learning and is helpful to disentangle learning-specific and unspecific ERPs

Successful second language learning is tied to robust domain-general auditory processing and stable neural representation of sound

There is a great deal of individual variability in outcome in second language learning, the sources of which are still poorly understood. We hypothesized that individual differences in auditory processing may account for some variability in second language learning. We tested this hypothesis by examining psychoacoustic thresholds, auditory-motor temporal integration, and auditory neural encoding in adult native Polish speakers living in the UK. We found that precise English vowel perception and accurate English grammatical judgment were linked to lower psychoacoustic thresholds, better auditory-motor integration, and more consistent frequency-following responses to sound. Psychoacoustic thresholds and neural sound encoding explained independent variance in vowel perception, suggesting that they are dissociable indexes of sound processing. These results suggest that individual differences in second language acquisition success stem at least in part from domain-general difficulties with auditory perception, and that auditory training could help facilitate language learning in some individuals with specific auditory impairments

Analisa Ekonomi Proyek - Proyek Pertanian

Buku ini mengkaji tentang konsep proyek, siklus suatu proyek, identifikasi biaya, aspek fiinansial, analisa investasi usahatani, menentukan nilai ekonomi, neraca proyrk, analisa penerapan ukuran berdiskonto kemanfaatan proyek analisa sensitivitas.579 Ha

De la perception auditive à la mémoire : la musicalité comme fenêtre sur l'apprentissage de nouveaux mots

Les avantages liés à la formation musicale transfèrent au traitement du langage, et à certaines fonctions perceptives et cognitives. Nous examinons si cette formation facilite aussi l'apprentissage de mots nouveaux au long de la vie. Les enfants «musiciens» et les jeunes musiciens professionnels surpassent les participants de contrôle dans une série d’expériences, avec une plasticité cérébrale plus rapide, et une connectivité fonctionnelle plus forte, mesurées par électroencéphalographie. Les résultats des musiciens plus âgés sont moins clairs, suggérant un impact limité de la formation musicale sur le déclin cognitif. Enfin, les jeunes musiciens ont une meilleure mémoire à long terme des nouveaux mots, ce qui contribuerait à expliquer l’avantage observé. Ces effets de transfert de la formation musicale au niveau sémantique et de la mémoire à long terme révèlent l’importance des fonctions cognitives générales et ouvrent de nouvelles perspectives pour l’éducation et la rééducation.Based on results evidencing music training-related advantages on speech processing, perceptive and cognitive functions, we examine whether music training facilitates novel word learning throughout the lifespan. We show that musically-trained children and young professional musicians outperform controls in a series of experiments, with faster brain plasticity and stronger functional connectivity, as measured by electroencephalography. By contrast, advantages for old adult musicians are less clear-cut, suggesting a limited impact of music training to counteract cognitive decline. Finally, young musicians show better long-term memory for novel words, which possibly contributes, along with better auditory perception and attention, to their advantage in word learning. By showing transfer effects from music training to semantic processing and long-term memory, results reveal the importance of domain-general cognitive functions and open new perspectives for education and rehabilitation

Fast Brain Plasticity during Word Learning in Musically-Trained Children

International audienceChildren learn new words every day and this ability requires auditory perception, phoneme discrimination, attention, associative learning and semantic memory. Based on previous results showing that some of these functions are enhanced by music training, we investigated learning of novel words through picture-word associations in musically-trained and control children (8–12 year-old) to determine whether music training would positively influence word learning. Results showed that musically-trained children outperformed controls in a learning paradigm that included picture-sound matching and semantic associations. Moreover, the differences between unexpected and expected learned words, as reflected by the N200 and N400 effects, were larger in children with music training compared to controls after only 3 min of learning the meaning of novel words. In line with previous results in adults, these findings clearly demonstrate a correlation between music training and better word learning. It is argued that these benefits reflect both bottom-up and top-down influences. The present learning paradigm might provide a useful dynamic diagnostic tool to determine which perceptive and cognitive functions are impaired in children with learning difficulties

Professional Music Training and Novel Word Learning: From Faster Semantic Encoding to Longer-lasting Word Representations

On the basis of previous results showing that music training positively influences different aspects of speech perception and cognition, the aim of this series of experiments was to test the hypothesis that adult professional musicians would learn the meaning of novel words through picture-word associations more efficiently than controls without music training (i.e., fewer errors and faster RTs). We also expected musicians to show faster changes in brain electrical activity than controls, in particular regarding the N400 component that develops with word learning. In line with these hypotheses, musicians outperformed controls in the most difficult semantic task. Moreover, although a frontally distributed N400 component developed in both groups of participants after only a few minutes of novel word learning, in musicians this frontal distribution rapidly shifted to parietal scalp sites, as typically found for the N400 elicited by known words. Finally, musicians showed evidence for better long-term memory for novel words 5 months after the main experimental session. Results are discussed in terms of cascading effects from enhanced perception to memory as well as in terms of multifaceted improvements of cognitive processing due to music training. To our knowledge, this is the first report showing that music training influences semantic aspects of language processing in adults. These results open new perspectives for education in showing that early music training can facilitate later foreign language learning. Moreover, the design used in the present experiment can help to specify the stages of word learning that are impaired in children and adults with word learning difficulties

Evidence for Enhanced Long-term Memory in Professional Musicians and Its Contribution to Novel Word Learning

International audience■ Previous studies evidenced transfer effects from professional music training to novel word learning. However, it is unclear whether such an advantage is driven by cascading, bottom-up effects from better auditory perception to semantic processing or by topdown influences from cognitive functions on perception. Moreover, the long-term effects of novel word learning remain an open issue. To address these questions, we used a word learning design, with four different sets of novel words, and we neutralized the potential perceptive and associative learning advantages in musicians. Under such conditions, we did not observe any advantage in musicians on the day of learning (Day 1 [D1]), at neither a behavioral nor an electrophysiological level; this suggests that the previously reported advantages in musicians are likely to be related to bottom-up processes. Nevertheless, 1 month later (Day 30 [D30]) and for all types of novel words, the error increase from D1 to D30 was lower in musicians compared to nonmusicians. In addition, for the set of words that were perceptually difficult to discriminate, only musicians showed typical N400 effects over parietal sites on D30. These results demonstrate that music training improved long-term memory and that transfer effects from music training to word learning (i.e., semantic levels of speech processing) benefit from reinforced (long-term) memory functions. Finally, these findings highlight the positive impact of music training on the acquisition of foreign languages.

Prosodie et intonation : notions de base et données neuro-psycholinguistiques

International audienceL a prosodie est un aspect déterminant du langage parlé qui permet de véhiculer un message linguistique et paralinguis-tique et que nous pouvons définir comme un système grammatical complexe (Beckman, 1996) dont les sous-composantes sont l'intonation, le phrasé et l'accentuation (intonation, phrasing , prominence). D'un point de vue strictement phonétique, il s'agit principalement des modulations mélodiques et rythmiques produites dans un énoncé qui servent à véhiculer du sens pragma-tique (comme le focus de phrase) ou bien à marquer la frontière des constituants syntaxiques. En effet, afin de saisir pleinement le sens ou la structure linguistique d'un énoncé, les informations lexicales, syntaxiques et sémantiques ne suffisent pas, et les modulations prosodiques doivent être prises en compte. Par exemple, la même phrase « Aujourd'hui il fait vraiment beau » peut véhicu-ler soit un sens littéral, si elle est prononcée avec une intonation assertive neutre, ou bien signifier son contraire si elle est pronon-cée avec une prosodie ironique (D'Imperio, Champagne-Lavau, Loevenbruck, et Fouillaud, 2013 ; Loevenbruck, Jannet, D'Impe-rio, Spini & Champagne-Lavau, 2013). La prosodie joue aussi un rôle dans la désambigüisation syntaxique, si on prend l'exemple « La vieille ferme la porte », qui peut être prononcé soit comme « La vieille ferme la porte » ou bien « La vieille ferme la porte » (où la rupture prosodique est marquée par la barre verticale), qui diffèrent par la fonction de l'homophone « ferme » qui revêt un rôle verbal dans la première phrase vs celui d'un adjectif dans la deuxième. Il s'agit aussi des premiers aspects de la parole acquis par l'enfant, et ce à partir du stade prénatal (de Boysson-Bardies, 1996), qui lui permettront d'accéder au lexique (Gerken, 1996 ; Gerken, et Aslin, 2005 ; Jusczyk, Cutler, et Redanz, 1993 ; Jusc-zyk, et Kemler Nelson, 1996) ainsi qu'à d'autres structures lin-guistiques, telles que les constituants syntaxiques de haut niveau. Parmi les sous-systèmes prosodiques, un aspect qui a retenu l'attention de nombreux chercheurs est l'intonation, ou les variations mélodiques au cours de l'énoncé qui peuvent être utilisées pour apporter une valeur pragmatique contrastive (Beyssade, Delais-Roussarie, Marandin, et Rialland, 2004 ; Ladd, 1996/ 2008 ; Portes et Reyle, 2014). Dans le langage adulte, des patrons intonatifs contrastifs, tels que des accents mélodiques catégori-quement différents (qui diffèrent par exemple en alignement tonal, c'est-à-dire la position temporelle du pic mélodique à l'intérieur d'une syllabe accentuée, voir D'Imperio 2011 pour une revue), peuvent en effet déterminer à eux seuls la valeur pragmatique d'un énoncé telle que, par exemple, le contraste entre une question et une assertion, comme dans (1) ; ou signaler la portée du focus informationnel (large ou étroit) ou un contraste dans le discours, comme dans (2) ; ou bien désambigüiser un référent dans le discours (Ito et Speer, 2008), ce qui est exemplifié en (3). Plus spécifiquement, une courbe mélodique montante (voir 1b) est ut

One Step Beyond: Musical Expertise and Word Learning 10.1 A Cortical Framework of Speech and Language Processing 10.1.1 The Faculty of Language and its Neural Substrate

International audienceSpeech and language processing constitute a uniquely human faculty that can be distinguished from other forms of communication in the animal kingdom. In fact, even though it has been proposed that different species possess the faculty of language in a broad sense (i.e. mimic, gesture, olfactory cues, etc.), only human language is characterized by a recur-sive structure (Fitch, 2010), the latter referring to the ability to produce an infinite number of phrases from a finite number of entities (i.e. phonemes and words). Until now, different evolutionary theories have attempted to explain the possible origin of speech and language processing in human beings, ranging from the expansion of brain size relative to body weight, genetics, brain asymmetries, anatomical characteristics of the larynx, and mirror neurons, to cultural and societal aspects (among others) (Fitch, 2010; Fitch & Reby, 2001; Hauser, 2002). From a linguistic perspective, speech and language processing can be subdivided into different subsystems including phonology, syntax, semantics, morphology, and pragmatics. Phonology refers to knowledge of the sound structure, syntax deals with the rules governing the combination and the order of words in a sentence, semantics addresses the meaning of single words and sentences, morphology is concerned with the structure of words, whereas pragmatics examines language in contexts (e.g. discourse, inference , interaction). Furthermore, depending on intonations and stresses, semantics can be influenced. In the last decades, both lesion studies and neuroimaging techniques have fundamentally contributed to a better understanding of the cortical organization of speech and language OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF-FIRSTPROOFS, Fri Jul 27 2018, NEWGEN 02-oxfordhb-9780198743187-part-2.indd 209 27-Jul-18 1:26:57 P